


Indispensable

by Deejaymil



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Bad Matchmaking, Canon-Typical Violence, Dave and Emily are TERRIBLE guardian angels, David Rossi: Matchmaker, Emily isn't much better, Guardian-Ward Relationship, M/M, Rossi swears like a sailor, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-13 21:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9142759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: Dave's a damn good guardian angel, one of the best. And being one of the best means he gets the worst jobs: the important, the clumsy, the reckless, the difficult-to-keep-alive. The indispensables. But he's never before quite had anyone like Spencer Reid.Within the first two seconds of meeting his new charge, the kid gets hit by a car; it really only goes downhill from there. His only consolation is that Emily is having just as much trouble with her new charge, Aaron Hotchner.If only they could somehow combine their assignments...





	1. Hatchling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annber03](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annber03/gifts).



> Retirement wasn’t suiting him. Sure, the food was nice, but the company ever since Abirami had been reassigned was… well, about as rowdy as a barrel of pickled fish.

He should probably stop telling everyone that though.

“You’ve earned your retirement,” Batty tried to tell him one day, green eyes alive with a kind of quixotic optimism. That expression made Dave’s wings itch with the desire to inform him that Santa was actually an asshole and that fairies were only moths that had accidentally touched angel grace. Still buggy, just sparkier about it. “Come on, Sikarbaal, you’ve worked hard over the last millennia. Rest. Put your wings up. One day, you’ll be needed once more on the mortal plane.”

“Dave,” Dave corrected him, flapping his wings both to stir the paperwork Batty was working busily on into a mess on the corner of his desk and also because he was not the kind of angel who _retired._ “I go by Dave now. Surely you’ve got that somewhere there in that paperwork nightmare, Batty.”

Batty winced. “Batnoam, please,” he said stiffly. Stiffly, of course, because every winged bastard in this place had an ethereal stick up their collective holy as— “And please… ah, Dave… please stop _thinking_ quite so loud. We can hear you, you know.”

Oops.

Dave sighed, kneading his knuckles into his eyes with frustration. It was just so damn _boring_ up here. And pretentious. And _floaty_. Everything was white: the hallowed walls, the godlike foods, the billowing clothes, _everything_. He missed _colour._ He missed fun!

Mostly, he missed Abirami. But he’d never tell her that.

“Come on, Batt—Batnoam,” he pleaded, leaning forward to show how serious he was. “Surely _someone_ needs a guardian down there on good ol’ earth. I’ll even take a dictator. I’m high-ranking enough that you can trust me with that! Presidential elections are soon in the US, yeah? Give me one of them!”

Batnoam frowned. On the white-washed wall behind him, a white-washed clock _tick tick ticked_ without actually showing a time on its irritatingly blank face. _Pretentious_ , Dave thought crankily. “Your time will come that you are required again,” Batnoam said, and standing. His wings were tightly folded against his back, white feathers neatly groomed. Dave’s own wings were thrown out backwards from the chair he was sprawled on, feathers askew and grey-brown barred pattern ragged. “Until then, take this as it is,” he paused, Dave pouted, “as a _gift_.”

“Bah!” Dave snapped, leaping upright and turning, his wings sending a white lamp toppling. “Bah! If this is your idea of a gift you can shove it—” Batty teleported him with a snap of his fingers. Dave blinked, finishing his sentence to his own bedroom. “—up your angel ass. _Bastard_.”

Heaven was _hell_.

 

* * *

 

Today’s dinner was godlike mashed potatoes and godlike roast… well, it looked like chicken. Technically, none of it was actually potatoes or chicken _or_ all that godlike, and Dave picked at it sadly and wondered if it was possible to be depressed without all the necessary brain chemicals to imbalance.

Someone thumped down next to him with a loud, “Oh great, more white,” and the sound of aggressive discontentment. He blinked, catching sight of humped black feathers and unbrushed hair hanging low over dark eyes.

“Alright, Abi?” he asked, perking up instantly. _Company!_ “Wasn’t expecting you back for a decade yet. You kill another charge?” He meant it in a teasing manner, nudging her wing with his as he did so in a subtle encouragement for her to fold the appendage shut so he could see her face.

She folded the wing, alright, and glared at him without any of her usual sass. Nor did she correct him on the name she’d chosen this week either—after her previous _Lunala Lovebite_ , he was kind of curious how she planned to top that—and they were both signs that all was not right in her feathery little world either. “If only,” she mumbled, and dropped her head into the crook of her folded arms on the table, shoulders bowed against the weight of her wings.

Oh. That wasn’t hard to decipher. Their charges weren’t always _worthy_ of being guarded.

“Sorry,” he murmured, slipping his hand around her bicep and squeezing gently. “Sometimes, we get bastards. Did he kick it or…?”

“Or,” she replied, rolling her neck to the side so she could peer up at him. “He’s fifteen. I had to get him through a paramilitary terrorist operation. And then I got him out, and what the fuck does the teenage idiot do?”

Dave wasn’t entirely sure, but he was still getting a distinct vibe that his friend was _disappointed_ that her charge hadn’t bit the dust, despite his age. “Finish high school and go on to higher education and a better life?” he asked hopefully.

“Joined the fucking _IRA_ ,” she snapped, and picked up Dave’s fork to stab aggressively his fake-potatoes, “and then I got pulled. So, everything I did to protect him was just so he could join the tosspots I was _protecting_ him from. What was the point? I kept him alive so he could hurt people!”

Dave took the fork from her, carefully. “He might not,” he soothed, spreading his wings with a meaty glare at two angels passing by who glanced at them curiously. _Fuck off_ , he thought loudly, and they went obediently away. “He’s only fifteen. You don’t know—”

“I looked at his book,” Abi muttered. Her wings gave up their valiant attempt to stay flush against her back and drooped miserably to the floor. “He’s going to grow up to kill people, Dave. I just guarded a serial killer. Woo, me. Gold standard angeling, angel…”

There was really nothing he could say to that. Sometimes, this job fucking stunk.

“Sorry, Abi,” he replied finally, slinging his arm around her. She sniffed, the sound sad and somehow angry all at once, and he was ready to bet she was going to be stuck in the coop for a couple of decades while she unruffled her feathers from _this_ particular bullshittery. “God, I’m sorry.”

She sniffed again, nestled against his chest. Despite the circumstances, he’d missed this. Home was a lonely place for an angel out of his own time. And he was getting too old for this. Black wings rustled again as they perked up slightly, a smirk curling the corners of her mouth.

“Blackbird,” she said with a wet chuckle. “I’m Blackbird this week.”

Some things never really changed. Luckily, his friend seemed to be one of them.

 

* * *

 

The coop, despite the delightful weather—really the only thing it had going for it—and some _okay_ views of the landscape surrounding, didn’t get cable. There wasn’t exactly a berth of ‘things to do to cheer up my sad angel buddy.’ Dave pondered this as he headed to her room in the afternoon with a bag of Thai take-out he’d had Hannibal smuggle him up from down below.

_Dave!_ The mental shout was loud and as smooth as a cat’s purr. He knew it instantly.

_Ahh, Abi. I was just coming to you—_

_Never mind that—Dingbat is looking for you. You’ve been—_

“Sikarbaal, there you are.” Batty appeared with the distinctive _thwomp_ of imploding air and a restrained rustle of uptight feathers. “I put some thought into your request, and after some consideration—”

_This might be my fault_ , Abi whispered. Nearby, Dave heard another _thwomp_ as she teleported closer, eavesdropping. _Sorry sorry!_

“—and out of a desire to, ah, keep the peace as such, I’ve decided to grant you your wish. You’ve been reassigned.”

Dave blinked. _What did you do?_ he thought to her, as he said to the prim angel in front of him, “When?” and tried not to wince at how harsh his voice sounded. This was _good_ but he also suspected Abi was more upset than she was letting on and he was all she—

“Immediately,” Batty said blandly, handing him a manila folder with a curt smile.

_… I might have turned the sheep rainbow colours again. They think it was you._

_They would_. Dave took the file, flicking it open and staring at the face of a squirrelly looking kid of about four or five gazing at him through smeary glasses. _You normally go black._ “I’m being assigned to a _kid_?” he asked incredulously. He hadn’t had a kid for over five-hundred years! “The fuck did I do to deserve this kind of hell?” Kids were the _worst_. Always eating things they shouldn’t and falling into pools. And worst of all, they were _sticky_.

“Language, please, Sikarbaal,” Batty snapped, sounding almost irate. Always overprotective of his damn sheep. Abi _owed_ him for this.

“Sorry,” said Dave. “I mean, the fuck did I do to deserve this kind of heck?”

The sigh he received was almost un-angelic. Dave smiled back sweetly. “He is listed as ‘indispensable’,” Batty said, turning on his heel and striding away. “Do not lose him.”

Huh. An indispensable. Well, that _was_ interesting.

_You got an indispensable?_ Abi queried, popping out from around a corner and peering at the file in his hands. “That’s big. You could lose your wings if you mess this up. He’s important to something.”

Dave snorted. “I haven’t lost a charge since I was still barely new to my wings,” he boasted, scanning the glossy pages of information. “I’m not going to lose this one. This…” He read the name in the neat typeface. “… Spencer Reid. How hard can a kid be?”

She’d remind him of this boast later.

 

* * *

 

He stepped out where the coordinates dropped him, flexing his wings in what turned out to be baking desert air just in time to see his charge sprint past and out in front of an oncoming car.

Well, fuck.

“You shit!” Dave yelped, leaping into the air and barrelling after the kid. Too late to do much more than shove him out of direct impact range. The kid squeaked, smacking onto the pavement with a meaty thud and the tinkling sound of shattering glass as the car slammed to a squealing stop. Broken arm instead of a cracked skull.

Not a good start. But… _something_.

People milled around them avoiding the patch of pavement where Dave was standing, despite not being consciously aware of his presence, and flustering over the shell-shocked kid. Dave peered down, wincing at the greenish hue of the kid’s skin and the grossly pointy twist to an elbow that should probably be going the other way.

“Cover his arm,” he suggested to a woman, who tugged off her jacket and crouched down to wrap it gingerly around the afflicted appendage. “Tell him not to look at it.”

“Do me a favour, love, don’t look at your arm, okay?” she said, and the kid went, if possible, greener. Hazel eyes huge on his pale face, he twitched around and stared across the road. Dave followed his eye-line and saw a small gaggle of middle schoolers standing there, mouths agape.

Great. Now he was going to be spending his time _tsk_ ing at bullies.

“Alright,” he sighed, “let’s get this started then.” At least they’d had their near-death experience for the day. He could relax while they rearranged the wonky elbow.

Relax.

_Yeah._

He stood by that there really was _nothing_ he could have done to prevent the hospital from using carbenicillin as part of the post-operative care, and it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t had time to read the whole way through the folder that listed the penicillin under ‘life-threatening allergens’ seeing as his day had begun with the kid getting hit by a damn car.

But he got written up anyway.

“You,” David commented, sprawling in the chair next to the sleeping kid and examining his scuffed-up face and his ridiculous hair and the lips-cheeks combo that was going to  _ruin_  hearts when he got older—if he got older—, “are going to be a real pain in my ass to keep alive, aren’t you?”

Spencer, busy sleeping, didn’t answer. David rustled his wings angrily and settled in to wait. Surely,  _surely_ , he’d only have to work this job for a little while… just until the kid achieved whatever it was the higher ups wanted him to do and became ‘dispensable’ again.

That couldn’t take that long, right?


	2. Nestling

The next year passed in relative peace. Which was to say, it was boring as _shit._ Kids didn’t do anything interesting and, once the novelty of guarding a teensy genius had worn off, this one wasn’t any different. When Spencer wasn’t reading or being read to by his way-too-normal family, he was avoiding bullies by taking long scenic walks home from school or playing chess in the park. Breaking it all up with occasional games of tee-ball coached by William. Thrilling stuff.

Dave was glad it was a house of books because _goddamn_ was it dull. It became habit to nab a book in the morning and settle in in some sort of close proximity to where Spencer was doing his dorky thing.

Spencer’s dad was distantly loving, his mother overbearingly proud and borderline smothering, and overall it was just… boring. The only time it picked up was the sporadic flight from middle schoolers who thought they were tough for picking on a six-year old and the occasional moment where Dave could almost swear Spencer was looking at him… but that wasn’t possible, because no mortal could see him unless he let them. Their minds simply couldn’t fathom his existence.

“At least it’s not white,” Dave muttered one day, popping back to the boy from a flight over Vegas to stretch his wings and finding him playing chess alone. As usual. Cross-legged on the bedroom floor, books scattered around him, and his dad working in the office up the hall. A clock ticked. Spencer turned the board, moved a piece, turned the board, and Dave was almost tempted to kick the thing over just to liven it up a little. Instead, he flopped onto the floor as well, picking up a copy of _Mother Night_ and making a mental note to show it to Abi if he ever got out of this mundane hellhole.

The front door banged. Spencer twitched, looking up without moving his head, wary eyes on the door. Dave ignored it, recognising Diana’s voice as William walked down the hall to talk to her.

“Why do you have this book in here?” he asked Spencer without expecting an answer, paging idly through. “You’re _six_. Shouldn’t you like… be reading picture books? How do you even conceptualize half of this cra—”

Raised voices sounded out. Spencer stood, slowly, and inched towards the door. “Oh, domestic trouble,” Dave joked, lowering the book, but something in his chest sank low and sad. “Don’t worry, kid. It doesn’t always stick.”

Spencer slid the door open a crack. Dave took a moment to be glad this wasn’t like one of his previous charges, a politician labelled _indispensable_ who’d tested Dave’s resolve each and every day by taking to his son with a saddleback leather belt, and then he stepped forward just in time to hear Diana burst into tears and say, “I don’t want to go back, William, don’t make me. Please.”

Spencer swallowed. Dave looked down at him curiously, at the long mop-hair that William took him to the barber’s shop every two month to get trimmed back from his eyes, barely tall enough to brush Dave’s hip. “She’s sick again,” Spencer murmured, pushing the door shut, and he did it again. Looked in the direction of Dave, his eyes narrowed. Looked away. Swallowed again. Later, Dave would wonder who he’d been talking to.

Boring ended that day.

 

* * *

 

It was a horrifyingly new experience to watch someone’s mind slip from their grasp, not from age or infirmity, but a healthy, intelligent mind with everything going for it. Dave watched quietly from the sidelines as Diana fought to keep her job, as she fought to keep her sanity, as she fought to keep her life. Spencer clung like only a terrified six-year-old could, and Dave wondered how he was supposed to protect his charge from his own mind.

“Someone is _watching_ us, William,” she was declaring this day, her narrow fingers biting into Spencer’s shoulder as he stood by her side with his school bag hanging from one limp hand. Hazel eyes cut from parent to parent, and David prowled behind. “He can’t leave the house. We can only keep him safe here. I’m not _crazy_.”

“Maybe I should stay…” Spencer tried, always the mediator.

“Diana, stop!” William barked, furious and railing against the world. “You know it isn’t real, what you’re feeling isn’t _real_. You need to try harder to fight this—no one is watching us, no one is after Spencer, and you’re hurting him by giving in to your delusions!” The decision was made, Spencer was sent to school, and he walked slowly with his head low and bag dragging. Dave walked by his side and hated this job more than ever.

It was bullshit. This wasn’t something he could help with, and that knowledge was killing him.

Their footsteps slowed at the gates of the school. Inside the fence, a gaggle of boys played with a battered ball. Dave muttered in irritation, seeing Spencer’s face crumple. Little shits. _Not today,_ he thought tiredly, and looked at his charge’s unbrushed hair and the shadows under his eyes. “Come on,” he said out loud. Spencer twitched. “Bugger that. Let’s go to the park. Just for today.”

_Jesus, Dave,_ he imagined Abi scolding. _Barely seven and you’re teaching him to play hooky_. _The hell kinda angel are you?_

_I’m alternative,_ he’d reply, and he missed her sorely in that moment.

Spencer slunk away from the gate and skittered down a side alley. Dave followed, pleased, and used his magic to turn any adults’ eyes away from his charge as they made their slow way to the stone chess table at the park that Spencer favoured. Behind them, the school bell rang and Spencer’s face turned tight, imagining a phone call and police and tears and groundings.

Guiltily, Dave quickly vanished with a _thwop_ the boy didn’t register, reappearing at home. The house was silent. A clock ticked up the hall and Diana’s door was closed. William was on the couch, asleep. He’d spent the night trying to talk her down from her latest paranoia with a painstaking patience that Dave envied. It was one of the few times he was reminded that there was love between these two distant humans, that something beyond the son they disagreed over held them together.

Not just for Spencer’s sake, Dave tipped the phone off the hook. A rest would do them all good.

When he popped back to the park, Spencer wasn’t alone anymore. “Hi, Spence,” said the stranger, sitting down across from him. Spencer smiled warily, shrinking down into his seat, and Dave’s wings itched instantly. _Dislike, dislike_ , that feeling screeched and he stepped between them, one hand on the chess board but invisible to them both. “Why aren’t you at school?”

“I don’t know you,” Spencer replied after a beat. “I’m going to go home.” There was an uncertain waver in his voice as he slid from the seat and grabbed his bag. Dave relaxed. Smart kiddo. Some benefit of being a—

The man grabbed the strap of Spencer’s backpack, a snap-flash of a move that sent Spence stumbling towards him. “Hey, don’t leave, I only just got here,” he said with a bright smile that was _wrong_ ; Dave booted him in the knee out of reflex. “Argh!” The man dropped like a rock, letting go of the bag, and Spencer bolted.

Dave took a moment to memorize the guy’s face before taking to the air and swooping after his fleeing charge, crashing through the bushes and coming out panting on the side of the ball park. Spencer’s eyes were wide, his chest heaving. “You should probably tell your parents about that,” Dave suggested with a cough. “I’m gonna get a beeper for you, kid.”

Spencer bit at his lip before brushing himself down and making his way back to the school, slipping into the library to huddle by the science textbook stacks where no one would bother him so long as he was quiet. Dave waited until he was cosseted there, somewhat unwilling to leave just yet, and then teleported. He had a feeling whatever that had been, it was exactly why he was here.

 

* * *

 

“Come on, you have to let me see his book,” he wheedled his own librarian, following the tiny brunette angel through the endless stacks of the books of life. In here somewhere, among the plain books and the big books and the heartbreakingly small books, there was one titled _Spencer William Reid_. “Give me something to work with here. I’m not supposed to directly confront humans, and I had to _kick_ one today because I wasn’t prepared.”

“It’s hardly my fault you let your guard down, Sikarbaal,” she replied, shoving her glasses up her nose. She didn’t need them, no angels did, so he was sure she was wearing the things just because it felt like a librarian thing to do. That was oddly irritating. “You can’t look at your current charge’s book. When you’re done, you can look. Before that is cheating.”

“Cheating to save a life,” he coaxed, summoning the file into his hands and holding it open plaintively. “Look at this kid, Alesia. He’s _adorable_. And a genius—so you know he’s going to cure hangnails or something equally awful. If I lose him, we’re fucked and you know it.”

“Language,” she snapped, but he saw her resolve waver. Checkmate. Her one weakness—stuck up at the coop, she never got to see real people and she _loved_ children. Spencer, for all his weird boringness, was a goddamn sweet looking six-year-old. All big doe eyes and cheekbones and floofy hair wrapped in a woolly sweater. “Oh, fine. But _you_ don’t look. I do!”

“Just the next year, honest,” he agreed, and followed her thought the spiralling stacks. She moved unerringly, knowing exactly what she was looking for, and finally stopped by a long line of thin-bound books. Children’s lives. All those born the same year as Spencer. Dave watched with interest as the books whispered countless secrets of those tiny minds, the pages rustling as an invisible hand sketched new lines of life within them. Even as he watched, one book closed with a sound like grief, barely eight pages long and tattered at the edges.

He looked away from that one, back to where Alesia was pulling down a book bound with a deep purple cover, the pages shiny and delicate to the touch. Even next to the other books nearby, it looked painfully fragile and somehow _more_ all at once. _Spencer Reid,_ said the cover in a silver filigree, and she opened it with careful hands to a page already filled in. He resisted the urge to lean over and look, tucking his wings in tighter to avoid nudging a book off track.

“Oh,” Alesia said finally, her wings mantling in a rustle of fawn coloured feathers. Something dark flickered across her rounded face, a cold angelic anger. “Oh, Sikarbaal…” He held his hand out, and she shook her head. Still determined to uphold the deal. “Five possible outcomes,” she continued, flattening her wings back to hide her anxiousness. Dave waited, heart hammering somewhere in the region of his solar plexus. “Three are deaths. Two he lives, but in one of those he gets… hurt.”

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” Dave snapped. She was replacing the book back in the shelf, without so much as giving him a _hint_ how to avoid—three deaths?? How did the kid almost die _three_ different ways in one year?! “No ‘watch out for stairs’ or ‘he eats some bad sushi’?”

She teleported them both with a _thwop_ , cutting him off mid-rant. Another stack. This one was smaller but the books were thicker, some whittled back to archives by time as others grew wider. She wordlessly handed him a book with a slick grey cover that felt slimy under his hand, the soul inside worn and twisted. His wings ached, his magic hissing back, and the cover said _Gary Lewis Michael._

“It doesn’t have an end,” she said quietly. “I think you’ve found your purpose, Sikarbaal. Return it when it’s done, please.” She vanished. He looked down at the book again, skin crawling. _Every_ book had an end. Only Alesia knew how to read those ends. As far as Dave would get was the current… he flipped through the endless pages of tight, angry scrawling, until he found where the pages were empty, reading the final few lines. It was a mad, ungrammatical nightmare of furious thoughts, and something cold set up home in his belly.

_Saw the boy at the park one of the boys he was alone but he left he’ll come back what about the other find the house find the_

He teleported back to Spencer in a heartbeat, reappearing almost on his shoes. “Get used to me, kid,” he told the dozing boy, his head leaned neatly against a metal bookcase. Dave was shaking, frightened by those obsessive words, and determined that the sicko wasn’t coming _anywhere_ near his kid. “Cos I’m sticking so close to you from now on you’ll be tasting feathers.” Spencer snuffled in his sleep, didn’t say a word, and Dave settled in to read the darkling book properly.

 

* * *

 

Days ground into a wary shift of him trying to ensure his charge was never without another human within shouting reach. His second warning appeared two days after the run-in with the stranger at the park, for ‘physical misconduct with a mortal being’; on his third in a year’s timeframe, he’d be reassigned. But he didn’t trust another angel with this. Not anymore. Not after he’d read enough of the book to know what he was up against. Thoughts didn’t declare actions, but if this man acted on a _single_ one of those thoughts… Dave found himself pacing Spencer’s room at night with his wings bristling and skin crawling.

Diana’s paranoia grew, and Dave used that. Shamefully, he used it, because there were only so many times he could duck into a stranger’s house and suggest they water their front garden as Spencer walked past to school, or set off car alarms to bring occupants running. Soon, she was walking him to school—something William worried over and Spencer was delighted by—picking up him, and the trips to the park _thankfully_ subsided a little.

If Diana was there, Dave hunted. Slipped as far away as he dared and looked at every face, every watcher, looking for one man. Not hugely sure what he could do if he found it, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d taken a twisted mind and twisted it further… never a good resolution, but a damn final one.

“Let him _be_ ,” William snapped to Diana one day as Spencer played in the front garden.

Dave waited until the man had driven away to work before guiltily murmuring, “Don’t leave him alone, he’s in danger,” and feeling ill as her face visibly paled. Spencer was overjoyed to play Patience with his mom on the front lawn, but Dave felt like a monster and the feeling didn’t fade. Even as Spencer seemed to settle into a cheerful kind of existence, coming out of his shell at the renewal of his mother’s interest in living, Dave felt haggard, worn. Spread too thin with too many holes in his defences. This is why he hated guarding _children_. It would only take a fucking heartbeat for things to go so, so wrong.

He hid one of his feathers in the bag Spencer took everywhere with him, ensuring he’d be able to find him even if someone with a slimy soul obscured the boy from his view.

He wished Abi was here.

Spencer made a friend at Little League, and Dave was alone.

“No more kids,” he muttered, pacing in a circle around the two boys playing under the bleachers, before slinking away to do another circuit of the park when William glanced over at them. “Never again. After this, I’ll _happily_ retire. And you’d better be grateful, kid.”

“I’ll bring my comic next time!” Spencer’s new friend shouted, waving as he ran to a waiting car, and Spencer waved back before bounding home on his father’s heels, babbling excitedly. Dave followed, the book in his pocket and his magic ready, waiting for things to come to a head.

 

* * *

 

The book grew louder that night.

The whispers Dave could hear if he held it to his ear turned sharp, loud, _excited_ , and it jarred him from a peaceful doze on the floor. He stared at it, sitting innocuously on the desk where Spencer wouldn’t knock it—the boy couldn’t touch it, and Dave wanted it in sight—and the pages were darkening. Even as Dave watched in the blue-black light of midnight, a spreading gloom oozed wetly out the binding. Spencer mumbled in his sleep, rolling over. Face pale in the moonlight and mouth parted slightly. Completely vulnerable. Dave stood, gripping the slimy cover with two careful fingers and opening the book to the newest page. He read the words as they wrote themselves and everything went very still.

Six miles from here, a boy was dying. The book recorded his last words, as well as the thoughts of the man killing him.

Dave watched those thoughts being recorded as the night slowed until the boy’s words faded and the black turned to red in the morning light. Spencer slept peacefully until sirens screamed nearby, startling awake and seemingly unaware that Dave stood in the centre of his room holding the gleeful book in shaking hands, his wings wide and trembling. After that, it became easier to keep an eye on his charge, because everyone else was watchful too. Everyone was scared.

Riley Jenkins would never bring his comic to the ballpark; no one ever told Spencer why.

 

* * *

 

When it happened, it happened too quickly for Dave to even think. It wasn’t like he hadn’t planned for this. Rules or no rules: he’d burn his wings himself before that sick fuck laid one hand on his Spencer. That was _just_ because he was responsible for the kid. That was the only reason. Because he hadn’t lost a charge yet and didn’t plan on it now. Not when there was this much at stake. Whatever Spencer Reid was meant to do, Dave knew it was going to be _fantastic_.

They were at the park. It was a bright day. Spencer sat sulking with a viciously short haircut William had recently inflicted on him as either payback for Diana no longer taking the time to help her son with his hair or out of genuine concern for Spencer’s appearance. Dave wasn’t sure which. Gary Michael slid onto the seat in front of Spencer while Dave was watching across the park, and he smiled. A smile like a gun or a knife. Dangerous. A smile that knew what death felt like. Dave snarled and the birds around them shrieked as his wings flared. The boy and the man eyeing each other off didn’t seem to notice.

“Can I play?” asked Michael, and reached for a piece.

Dave didn’t think. He teleported— _thwop_ —and found Diana reading on in her living room.

“He’s in danger!” Dave roared, and her teacup shifted slightly. “Fuck the rules, _move_ , woman! The park—he’s at the park with the man who killed Riley Jenkins!” Diana blinked. Stared at the cup.

_Fuck_ the rules.

Dave stepped into existence near her, tucked his wings in close, and said, “Sorry, but he comes first.” Diana didn’t even have time to shout before he grabbed her thin wrist— _thwop_ —and the park burst into existence around them. She stumbled, turning to stare at Dave with her eyes bulging with shock and distress.

“Spencer,” he coaxed, and pointed.

Michael reached for the boy’s hand and Diana moved. Like lightning, she was there and scooped the boy up as he squeaked with shock. Dave wondered when the last time the boy had been held like that was. “You get the hell away from him!” snarled Diana with all the fury of every frightened mother, and Michael stumbled back. Spencer looked surprised, awed almost. Dave hid himself from the dozens of staring eyes turning towards them, right as she added, “God is watching _you_.”

Michael said something cold— _crazy bitch_ —but Dave was staring at Spencer as his mother carried him away. Barefoot on the grass, still in her dressing gown, she left his backpack on the ground by the chess table. She _did_ look crazy. She looked enraged. She looked scared.

Dave thought he’d never seen her looking stronger.

He picked up the bag and followed wordlessly, disaster averted. In his pocket, something warm appeared. No doubt another warning. His last. Third in a year: reassignment was nigh.

“Sorry, kid,” he murmured once he’d walked them home and watched Diana curl into a sobbing ball on the couch with her son on her lap. Crying into his spiky hair, ignoring his terrified queries about what had happened. “See you later.” He teleported, finding himself in the coop.

He was determined; this wasn’t the end of this job. No one else was as good as him. And Spencer _needed_ good.

Michael was still out there.

 

* * *

 

They made him wait. Sitting endlessly in a white-washed waiting room as the hours ticked endlessly by. He wondered what Spencer was doing. He wondered how Diana was dealing with an angel showing up in her living room. He wondered where Michael was. He wondered if he’d lose his wings for this. Showing himself to a human?

Shit, he couldn’t exactly remember the last time someone had done that, but it hadn’t been pretty last time and it probably wouldn’t be now.

He waited and waited and waited and knew that with every passing hour, his case was looking grimmer. They were angels. They didn’t fuck up. There were no other cases for the disciplinary board to _be_ looking at. If he was waiting this long, they were furious with him. He waited until he knew night had fallen in Las Vegas. At least Spencer would be home. Safe. And by morning, he’d either have Dave back or a new angel. If not Dave, he was going to make a _damn_ good case for Abi taking his place.

Closing his eyes, he rolled his head back against the hock of a wing, feathers brushing his cheek. _No more flying,_ he thought sadly. They might make him mortal. _No more coop, no more shitty food, no more white. No more Batty with the stick up his ass._

_No more Abi._

His wing burned suddenly, and he jerked upright with a shout. A line of heat, where a feather had been tugged free. His feather. The one he’d left in Spencer’s schoolbag. Someone holding that feather _needed_ him.

If he teleported to it…

They’d throw him to earth for sure. He was clipped. Confined to the coop until probably a hundred thousand years had passed. But…

Michael was still out there. He thought of hazel eyes, nights spent quietly adding to the charge on the batteries of the flashlight Spencer was using to read past his bedtime, evenings spent unconsciously guiding the boy to all the most interesting bugs.

_Thwop._

Spencer was holding the feather. It was cupped in his palms, grey and black and scrunched at the end from where Dave had shoved it into the lining of the bag to hide it. He was holding the feather, and his eyes were on Dave.

“You _are_ real,” he said softly, throat bobbing as he swallowed. Star Wars pyjamas ragged at the ends where he’d stepped on them, glasses on, pale and shivering. Outside, the moon was low. It was late. The house was silent. “Mom said you were. I didn’t know if I believed her, but I thought… maybe this was the one thing she _wasn’t_ imagining. And I found this ages ago.”

Dave looked at him. Something in his chest twisted and heated and he had the stupid fucking desire to lean down and hug the scrawny little weirdo. Instead, he said, “I can’t be here. I have to go, kid. You’ll get… someone else.”

“To look after me,” Spencer added, running his fingers gently along the feather. Dave shivered, feeling the need and the fear thrumming through that touch. “Please don’t go yet… I’m alone.”

“I said someone else will come,” Dave snapped, harsh because he had to be, and Spencer shook his head, socked feet shifting on the carpet.

“No, no,” he babbled, eyes dangerously bright, “I looked everywhere but no one is here. I’m _alone_. Please don’t leave.”

Dave blinked. Processed that. Walked to the door and through, moving up to the open door of Spencer’s parents’ room. The empty room. Every light in the house was on, flicked up by a terrified six-year-old as he’d desperately searched for comfort. And Dave was _furious_. “Goddamn how the fuck could they leave fuck—” He turned and Spencer was standing there, his hands folded in front of his tummy and his eyes wide with a distinct _guilt guilt guilt_ expression under the fear, “—when did they go?”

Spencer shrugged. He shuffled, the feather still in his hand. In the bright light of the hall, his pants were dark and made a wet noise against his skin as he moved. Dave groaned. “I had a nightmare they were gone,” the boy whimpered. “Like Riley. And then I woke up and they _were_ gone and I made a mess and Dad’s going to be mad and—”

“Hey, hey, shh,” Dave said, and now he _did_ crouch and hold his arms out. Spencer hurtled into the cradle of his chest, curling against him and beginning to make the horrible hiccupping snotty noise of the pre-hysterical child. Sharp as a tack but still just a _kid_. A kid that stunk of sweat and piss. “Okay. Okay. I’m going to find your parents and I’m not going to leave you alone. A friend is going to come and look after you and she’s _lovely_ , okay?”

A nod and a wet sounding snorting sniff that made Dave’s stomach lurch was his reply. _Sticky_ , he thought glumly and then silently reached back into his mind where his angel grace lurked, tethered by the black feather that hung around his throat, and thrust a chunk of it out with a shouted _Abirami!_

She appeared with a crack and stared at him, a straw in her mouth and her shirt on backwards. “You rang?” she said dryly, then looked at the kid. “Awh, shit, Dave. Everyone’s saying you fucked up bad, and then you come back here and show yourself to a mortal _again_?”

“I’ll explain later,” he promised, and shunted Spencer back onto his feet, turning him around. “Spencer, Abi. Abi, Spencer. I need to go. Look after him?” Spencer gaped around, not seeing the angel in front or hearing her voice, but Dave couldn’t wait any longer. Abi wouldn’t let him freak out. He flickered to the room and grabbed the book, hearing Spencer make a loud noise of distress that stopped abruptly. But as soon as Dave’s hand touched the book, he’d thrown himself boldly towards the man the book was connected to.

Wherever Gary Michael was, the Reids were too.

 

* * *

 

He got there as Michael died. He couldn’t really be sad about it, even as the book sighed and closed for good. What he felt instead was a weary resignation as he looked down at the sprawled corpse and at Diana standing over it. _In for a penny_ , he thought dryly, and showed himself again.

Diana looked up at him, and her face was as sane as Dave had ever seen it. “I’m not crazy,” she said calmly, and lowered the bat. “I know what he is. What he did. And I know I’m a murderer now. But he will _never_ touch my son. Are you real?” Dave eyed her. The blood on her clothes. The bat. And he made a choice.

Forget becoming mortal, this was going to earn him a one-way ticket to purgatory for sure. “Give me the bat,” he said, and held out his hand. “ _Now_.” She did, expression slipping into glazed shock. “Now, go home. Burn those clothes. For god’s sake, _don’t_ get caught.”

“The body—” she stammered.

“There won’t be a body,” he promised her, spreading his wings just to be sure she understood he meant that. Her eyes flashed over them, glazed more, and he knew this was probably going to be something she’d never recover from. But she ran. He waited until the door bounced shut behind her and hid the bloodied floor behind a veil of forgetting. It was still there, but no human would see it. One hand on the cooling body and he teleported again, feeling his magic groan and sag at the overuse. His wings ached. His lungs burned. The desert around him now was empty, a mineshaft dropping away in front of his feet. He stared at it and felt nothing.

_Thwop_.

“Sikarbaal,” Batnoam said, stepping up beside him and swallowing hard at the sight of the body. “Do you have _any_ idea what you’ve done? We’re in an uproar. You’ve broken rules we didn’t even know we had until today. Rules no one has ever broken before!” Dave silently handed him the book. Heard pages flickering. A sharp inhale followed. Somewhere nearby, a bird screeched. “We don’t make exceptions,” Batnoam said finally. “There will be punishment for this.”

“I did my job,” Dave replied huskily, and put one booted foot on the body and rolled it into the shaft. It hit the ground with an echoing smack and neither of them flinched. “I kept him safe. Do what you want to me, but don’t punish Spencer because I broke the rules. If you take me from him, leave Abi. She’ll keep him safe.”

Batty nodded after a long beat of painful silence. “Go back to him,” he said, his voice heavy. “Ensure he is okay. We will summon you from there with your sentence.” Dave didn’t wait for him to finish. Achingly weary, he blinked and found himself staggering into Spencer’s room. The bed was clean, the sheets fresh, the boy curled under the covers damp-haired and in pyjamas decorated with dancing ducks. Abi was laying behind the boy, one wing protectively tucked over his hips and legs. She watched Dave stagger, his knees hitting the ground.

“Sleep,” she said, tossing a pillow to him. “I’ll watch over him.”

Dave did. He woke once, to a folded message appearing on the floor next to him. Someone was crying down the hall, Spencer was still asleep, Abi was still there. The message was simple. And it was final. He smiled anyway. It was more than he’d expected.

_Spencer Reid will be your final assignment. Keep him safe. I can’t change what they say will follow. Sorry, Sikarbaal. I did my best. **B.**_

“Looks like I’m only indispensable so long as he is,” he commented tiredly, handing the note to Abi and rolling over so he didn’t have to watch her read it. “At least I can keep him safe before they…” Now he swallowed. He’d lived a long life. Done a lot. Everything ended, everyone died.

But he _liked_ living.

Abi said nothing, but she didn’t have to. He felt her sadness anyway.

And he didn’t regret a single choice.


	3. Fledgling

Dave had taken his feather back, keeping it in his pocket for the ‘emergencies’ that he was absolutely sure would crop up again, and Spencer spent the next three weeks searching for it.

“This isn’t fair,” the boy exclaimed to his bedroom, heedless of the fact that—without the feather to show him—Dave was actually on his bed, far right of where he was looking. “I don’t even know your name! You can’t show me that you’re real and then disappear, that’s not _fair_!”

“Life’s not fair, kiddo,” Dave said placidly, and continued reading his book. “Deal with it now or it’ll smush you like a weedy little bug.”

Spencer scowled furiously, seconds away from an uncharacteristic tantrum. Even the most placid six-year-old was still only six, and the last few weeks had been a hectic mess of Diana being in and out of a treatment facility as Michael’s murder destroyed what was left of her sanity. William, torn between looking after his child and his wife, had bought Spencer eight new books, three new chemistry sets, and plonked him in his room. Alone.

Heck, _Dave_ felt like throwing a tantrum, to be completely honest.

“Fine!” Spencer shouted, and kicked the wall. Dave winced with the impact. “Fine! I don’t want to talk to you anyway! I hate you, I _hate you!_ You… you… _pigeon_!”

“Spencer!” William roared, as Diana began to cry down the hall. “Come here!”

“You’re in trouble,” Dave teased. “Was it worth it? Pigeon, really?” Spencer slunk out, shoulders bowed and face a storm. But the boy didn’t answer Dave, and he faced his father alone.

 

* * *

 

With a tenacity that startled Dave as much at is—and he’d never admit it—dismayed him, it seemed that he had now earned himself a permanent place on Spencer Reid’s shitlist. Since he was six, this manifested in tantrums and sulks that lasted for weeks on end and the blame was placed squarely on Diana’s breakdown.

As a seven-year-old, he got cleverer.

“Salt?” Dave asked curiously, watching as Spencer studiously salted all the doors and windows, leaving long thick lines of white. “You know that’s not going to trap me, right?” Just to prove it wouldn’t, he tugged the window open to let in a winter breeze that had the kid dusting for days.

Spencer’s next attempt was painted runes. Dave chuckled and commented on the boy’s wonky lines. “You can’t trap angels,” he told the boy cheerfully, reading the pile of _really_ creepy texts the boy had brought home from the library. “And you can’t lock me out. Nothing in here will help you with that.”

And all this time, Diana got worse. The sicker she got, the more frazzled, the more frightened, the quieter Spencer turned as he withdrew into his own world. He constructed a pulley system around his bed that drew a blanket down and made it into a suffocating cave that Dave couldn’t fit inside, spending hours closeted within. The one time Dave had tried to tug aside a blanket to peer in, Spencer raged at him in a fury that lasted for days.

“I knew you were still here!” he stormed, glaring around the room. “You suck! Mom’s sick because of you and you’re _hiding_ from me! Why won’t you _help_? You’re supposed to look after me, that’s what angels _do!”_

“Only physically,” Dave said without making himself visible. Spencer hunched back into the blanket fort, ignoring the heat and the uncomfortable cosiness of the space, and deaf to his voice. Dave was beginning to feel worn out, thoroughly targeted by an angry boy’s frustration at the world. It wasn’t Spencer’s fault, but that didn’t make it _easier_ to deal with. “Your mental health has nothing to do with me. I don’t like it either, kid, I’m as trapped here as you are.” But he still waited until the huffs of breathing inside the blanket turned to low snores and then pulled the blankets away so the boy didn’t completely suffocate.

Spencer one day covered his ceiling fan with talcum powder and turned it on to see if he could see the dusting of white on Dave’s wings and shoulders and hair. That _would_ have worked, to be completely honest, if Dave hadn’t just sighed and made the talcum around him invisible as well, swooping his wings so it was impossible to tell which blank spaces in the room were from him standing there and which was just from the wind of his movements.

It didn’t dissuade the kid. Spencer dragged Dave along to endless churches and questioned anyone who’d stand still long enough on everything they knew about angels. Some of it was even correct. Not much of it was useful. And, after long enough, he cheered up. Apparently, a quest for knowledge—even if the intention was revenge—got the kid smiling easily enough. At least, he started sleeping with the blankets off, which was one less worry. Last thing Dave needed was this assignment ending with ‘Spencer Reid: dead by blanket.’

“Dad’s gone out again,” Spencer announced one winter night, hanging out his window with a blanket around his shoulders and a telescope balanced on the sill, trying to look from a star map and back to the lens. “I watched him leave. Mom says he’s either working for the CIA, or he’s having an affair.”

Dave slid the star map closer to Spencer, seating at the desk with the boy’s homework in front of him. Already working at a seventh-grade level, the work was precise and hardly needed checking at all, really, but since the kid had stopped going out, Dave was bored again. “Why did she tell you that? You’re seven,” he muttered. “You don’t even know what affairs _are_.”

“I asked my teacher and he wouldn’t tell me what an affair was, so I looked it up,” Spencer continued, his sneaker thumping on the wall as he shifted position.

“Or maybe you do,” sighed Dave. “Books will ruin the human race, they really will. _Please_ tell me you didn’t then look up se—”

“It means he’s having sexual intercourse with a woman he’s not married to,” Spencer said, and his foot thumped again, the familiar scowl back. “Or a man. The book didn’t say, but I guess that means he has a new family that’s not all weird like we are. Fifty-seven percent of men admit to infidelity in any relationship, and seventy-four percent of those believe they’ll never get caught. I wonder how many of them have kids…”

The telescope scraped on the windowsill as Spencer leaned out. Dave stood, ready to grab the kid’s arm if he fell. “You know it’s not your fault,” he told the boy helplessly, knowing his words wouldn’t help even if the kid _could_ hear him. “Or your mom’s. And stop looking up sex, I am _not_ dealing with that.”

“You’re probably not even listening,” Spencer finished, sliding back inside with his cheeks pinked and raw from the cold wind, tossing the telescope onto the desk with disgust. He scribbled some calculations on the star map and slunk to his bed, sliding fully dressed behind the hanging blanket with his shoes poking out. His voice from within was muffled: “The impact of infidelity on children is unknown, but eighty percent surveyed said that it affected their attitude toward love, negatively impacting their ability to trust others. I’m going to grow up _broken_.”

“You’re not a statistic, Spencer,” Dave told him, glancing to the door to where the parents who _should_ be doing this talk were instead of an incorporeal man with chicken wings.

But Spencer didn’t answer, just sulked.

 

* * *

 

_I’ve signed you up for boy scouts,_ William announced one day, and off Spencer was sent to learn all kinds of fun things with other boys his age. Dave tagged along.

“I don’t want to go,” Spencer began each Wednesday by saying, and was ignored every time. Dave stayed quiet, but he was fairly sure William’s firm stance on the topic was purely because it allowed him to feel less guilty about his indiscrete activities. This Wednesday morning was no different. “I don’t want to go,” Spencer whined at the breakfast table. “I don’t feel well,” he mumbled, with his cheek against the glass of the car door. “This is dumb,” he grumbled, as he slouched his way from the school gates after the bell that afternoon.

“Buck up, kiddo,” Dave cheered him. “We might have fun. Not everything comes from books, you know.” But, they didn’t. Spencer hunched down in a corner of the hall, ignoring the other boys as they rowdily zoomed around the room, and did nothing. Dave hovered over him. The scout leader, well used to Spencer’s reticence, ignored him.

“Come on, Spence,” Dave said finally, after reciting eight different songs from memory and dancing a jig to try and entertain himself. “At least _try_ to participate.”

Spencer twitched, looking around and up. Dave blinked. The boy’s eyes were glassy, his skin waxy white. “I don’t feel well,” he repeated again, and drew his knees to his chest.

Damn.

His scout leader dropped him home, and Spencer slipped in without calling out to his mom. The driveway was empty.

“Tell your mom you feel sick,” Dave demanded. Spencer ignored him and climbed the stairs to his room. “Spencer! Talk to your mom!” But, he slipped into his room and slammed the door behind him. Dave rolled his eyes and tried Diana.

“Kid is sick,” he said loudly, banging his palm on her bedside cupboard. Diana didn’t twitch, her breathing slow and eyes closed. “Diana! Spencer’s sick!” He banged again; on the cupboard, a pill bottle toppled. Medicated up to her eyeballs just to try and keep some hope of holding her family together. “Damnit…”

In his room, Spencer was huddled on the bed with a pillow over his face. “I don’t know how to help sick kids,” Dave said helplessly, trying to think back to the few children he’d worked over. “Spence, get up and _talk_ to your mom. I can’t wake her up. At least tell me what’s wrong!”

The bed was silent. Outside, the sun dipped below the horizon. Cranky, Dave slammed the switch on, flooding the room with light.

And Spencer cried out with pain, curling into himself.

“Don’t!” he wailed, and Dave lurched forward to grab the pillow to try and see where he was hurt—he _had_ to be hurt, he wouldn’t make that noise unless he was! “The light hurts, ow ow ow, please make it stop, my head…” He was scrunched up, his mouth twisted and eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking from the corners as he sobbed.

“Headache,” Dave deduced. “Okay. We can deal with headaches. Aspirin and—”

Spencer threw up with a choked kind of whimper, barely even twitching off the bed to do so. Listlessly, he groaned and wilted into the mess of sick, eyes blank. Dave blinked.

And hit the light on his way out, throwing the room into darkness as he teleported— _thwop_ —into a messy bedroom where Abi was reclined on an unmade bed with some kind of pornographic magazine held upside down in front of her nose.

“Abi!” he yelped, and she lowered the magazine with a startled noise. “My kid is sick, help, he’s puking and crying and terrible things and I don’t know what to—is that _Playboy_?”

“I’m working,” she said with a toss of her hair, throwing the magazine aside. Downstairs, there was a loud chorus of drunken music and a swell of music. “New charge. Kids puke, Dave. It’s what kids do. They puke and poop and shout. Lucky you.” The music got louder, throbbing, and Dave winced as his head threatened to hurt as much as poor Spencer’s. “As it turns out, eighteen year olds do all that stuff but with alcohol and pin-ups added on. I’m jealous. Enjoy him while he’s sweet. Also, it’s Emily now.”

He processed that. “Emily is very plain,” he commented, arching his wings with worry.

“Plain is what I need when dealing with teenagers,” she responded pertly. “I can’t come with you, Dave. I leave this kid alone for ten minutes and he’s shotgunning beers and proposing to his high school sweetheart.”

Dave swore, and teleported back to the dark bedroom that stunk of vomit and sweat. Spencer lay as still as he’d been when Dave had left. Reaching into his pocket, the feather was a mess of broken tines. He pulled it out and tucked it into the loose palm of the boy on the bed, his complexion ghastly in the broken light from the half-closed blinds. “Oi,” Dave said harshly, and Spencer twitched, his hand closing around the feather. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Dunno,” the boy slurred, eyes flickering open. “Hurts. Sick. You’re back. I missed you.”

“Okay,” Dave breathed, and pressed the back of his hand against his flushed head. “Fantastic. Wait here.”

Water. Aspirin. Thermometer. A basin. Uh… fresh sheets. All things he could do. He didn’t even bother to be quiet as he thumped around the house to fetch them.

“Towels,” said a voice, and he jerked out of the linen closet to stare at Ab—Emily as she closed her silk-black wings and stepped forward. “It’s easier to clean up towels than sheets, especially if he’s hurting when you move him. And he’s not going to get anything in the bucket, I can promise you. Seven year olds have shite aim.”

“What about your charge?” he asked, grateful as fuck that she was here.

“Busy having pre-marital sex,” she responded. “Also another thing you should be grateful your boy is a good eight years away from. There’s only so many times I can hum ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ with my hands over my ears before it gets old.”

“Thank you,” he said honestly, touching her hand. “Seriously. I…”

She looked at him strangely. “Should know how to deal with a sick kid?” she commented. “Seriously, Dave, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were _scared_. Like a mama hen over a sick chick. Since when have you gotten so involved with a job?”

That was… _unfair_.

But probably true.

“He’s different,” he said weakly, and followed her to the room. “He’s…” He stopped. The word evaded him.

But Emily knew it. “Alone.”

While she changed the bedcovers, he held Spencer in his arms, ignoring the grossly boneless way the boy laid with his head lolling against his chest and hiccupping moans still working through his body with every breath. Getting him in clean pyjamas was a challenge, getting the aspirin and water into him without him throwing it up was even more of one.

“Maybe we should call for help,” Dave said once, helplessly.

“It’s a migraine,” Emily soothed him. “Stop clucking. Once he sleeps, he’ll be fine.”

And eventually, he did. Dave adjusted a cold washcloth on the boy’s forehead, leaning on the bed and examining him carefully as the pained lines faded from his brow. “I have to go,” Emily said quietly, standing back. “Dave…”

He looked up at her, ignoring the odd way she was staring at him. “Don’t tell me not to get attached,” he said gruffly. “Too late for that, obviously.”

“His parents should have been here tonight, not you,” she said, sounding irritatingly like Batnoam. “We save lives. We don’t wipe faces and change sheets and tell them that life is good and everything is going to be okay. Everything is _not_ going to be okay. You’re here, working this job… that means that that boy is going to be in danger, horrible danger, and he’s going to suffer. And you only need to keep him alive until he achieves an end, whether or not that’s also an end to the danger… you’ll leave him one day.”

“Emily!” he barked, standing up with his wings out, angry from worry and tension and fear. “Do _not_ lecture me on this. I’ve been flapping around long before you even pecked your way into existence, and I know how to do my fucking job! I just…”

“Got attached and it affected your judgement,” she replied, raising her hands in a placating gesture as he growled. “Whatever, Sikarbaal. Enjoy the job.” She paused before she teleported: “But perhaps stop openly referring to him as ‘your kid’, mm?”

And she was gone. Dave stared at the spot where she’d been.

His kid?

When had he started doing that?

“Don’t leave,” Spencer slurred, stirring on the towels. “Please. I don’t…”

“Shh, shh,” Dave soothed, crouching back down. “Not going anywhere, Spence. I’m not going anywhere.”

Hazel eyes blinked sluggishly. “And don’t hide anymore.”

Dave considered that. _Ah, fuck it_ , he thought grumpily. _Last job anyway._ “I won’t,” he promised. “Go back to sleep. You need a shower.”

“’Kay.” Spencer drooped back into the bedcovers, eyes slipping shut. “Night, Rossi.”

Rossi?

“What kind of name is that?” Dave snorted, pleased despite himself. He’d never been named by someone else before, beyond his pretentious as shit birth-name. “Sounds like a brand of shoes.”

But he rather liked it anyway.

 

* * *

 

When Spencer was eight, the school organized a psychiatrist for him.

It was mostly Rossi’s fault.

“Your son is very, very clever,” every psychiatrist began with, before pulling out the folder of Spencer’s artwork. Rossi was quite proud of them. Kid was getting good at drawing feathers. “But his obsession with biblical scripture…”

“I’m not obsessed with the bible,” Spencer protested when his dad asked him about the drawings. “I’m drawing pictures of my friend! His name is Rossi and he’s an angel sent to look after me. Mom’s seen him!”

That, unfortunately, probably wasn’t the best thing to say.

“Dad’s just worried I’m going to turn out like Mom,” Spencer said glumly, flicking through a book that was thicker than his hands clasped together. “The doctor was talking about _antipsychotics._ Look at this, there’s no _basis_ for medication. I don’t want that!”

“It won’t happen,” Rossi promised him, his foot propping the door open and listening to the conversation occurring up the hall. William was snarling at someone over the phone. _Not my son. Absolutely absurd! Removal from the school…_ “Trust me, kid, he knows you’re not your mom. Plenty of people have imaginary friends.”

“You’re not imaginary,” Spencer said uncertainly, his fingers fumbling in his pocket for the feather. “I… I know you’re not. You play _chess_ with me.”

“No, I’m not,” Rossi reassured him. “Want to play a game? I know one you’ll _love_.”

And so, Rossi taught him the angel problem. “So the game ends when the devil catches the angel by adding a block to an infinite grid, blocking the angel from moving?” Spencer clarified carefully, studying the rules and the wonky grid Rossi had drawn them. “How does the angel win?”

“By never being caught!” Rossi declared. “It’s an infinite chessboard. Dibs on being the devil. Now run, angel-boy, run!” He won four times and they were halfway through their fifth game before the worry vanished from Spencer’s eyes. “You’ll win one day,” Rossi told him with a wink. “Well, technically, you _won’t._ But that’s how the game goes, boyo.”

“It must suck to always be chased,” Spencer mused. “Are there really devils?”

“Sure,” Rossi said casually, thinking of Michael and the shades of darkness behind Diana’s eyes. “Tons of them. They suck. And they never let up.”

“Ew,” Spencer agreed, wrinkling his nose. “They sound like they _do_ suck. Lucky nothing traps an angel. I should know… I’ve tried.” He smirked as Rossi rolled his eyes. Rossi had found that often, when left to his own devices, Spencer could sound exactly the age he was. Other times, when pushed, he was ageless. Rossi preferred him childlike, to be completely honest. You only ever got to be a child once, after all.

“Nope, nothing traps an angel,” Rossi said cockily.

But, when Spencer was nine, he trapped an angel. To be more specific, he trapped _Rossi_.

“Huh,” Spencer said, stepping back and blinking down at the starburst of cracked glass under Rossi’s shoes. “I didn’t… actually think that would work.”

Rossi stared down at it as well. “You summoned me,” he said, keeping his cool, “onto a… mirror. _Why_ would you do that? Your dad is going to _kill_ you now you’ve broken it.”

“It’s not really broken,” Spencer offered. “Just a little… cracky. And it was a theory. The silver backing…”

“Silver works with _werewolves_ ,” Rossi exclaimed, throwing his arms in the arm. Thoroughly stuck. He could walk around on the surface of the glass, but stepping off felt… uncertain. Like pushing against a sheer wall. “I’m not a bloody werewolf!”

“Works with angels too, apparently,” Spencer said smugly. “At the cost of Mom’s mirror… oops. Hey.” He held up Rossi’s feather, eyes wide and innocent. “If there’s a part of you outside of the mirror, can you like… do your teleporty thing to it?”

Rossi scowled. The answer was _yes_ , but he didn’t want _Spencer_ to know that. “I’m just kidding,” he declared loudly. “I’m not actually stuck.” And he teleported to Emily and the feather of his she kept on a necklace around her neck—the twin to hers that he had in the same fashion—just to prove that he could.

“Hullo,” she said, sitting in a lecture theatre next to a boy with dark hair and the kind of expression that suited a surgeon or politician more than it did a nineteen-year-old. “We’re learning law. It’s super fucking boring. How’s the shrimp?”

“Experimenting with mirrors,” Rossi muttered, and stayed until the lecture was finished just to prove how cranky he was with his charge. When he finally went home, he found every last powdered hint of broken glass gone and Spencer sitting morosely on his bed with their four-hundred-and-fifty-fifth game of Angels and Devils sitting in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “I won’t try to trap you anymore. It was just a game. Please don’t leave—you can even have this back if it makes you feel better.” He held the feather out with a shaking hand, seemingly determined not to show that he’d been crying.

“Keep it,” grunted Rossi. “I’m not mad.” He wasn’t really. A little proud, actually. Humans had been trying for _centuries_ to work out how to trap angels. At least the one who’d finally twigged to it was tiny and nice. “But don’t do it again,” he suggested, and sat down to play.

 

* * *

 

When Spencer was ten, his father left.

“Told you we were broken,” Spencer mumbled into his covers, the blanket fort back up for the first time in two years. “People always leave. They don’t like staying around me.”

Rossi hunkered close, his wings stirring the stuffy air in the room. “I haven’t left yet,” he said quietly, resigned to the fact that he’d probably be chasing this kid around for most of his life. Spencer didn’t seem the type to keep away from danger. “Don’t plan on it either.”

Spencer poked his head out of the fort, blinking owlishly at Rossi. “But I don’t _know_ how to look after Mom,” he gasped, face red and teary. “I can’t do it on my own! And I have to… to cook and who will buy groceries and what if the gas gets turned—”

It was stupid and he could hear Emily’s voice chanting _in too deep_ as he did so, but he hugged the kid tight until he stopped crying. “We’ll figure it out,” he said firmly. “I’ve never cooked before but, shit, can’t be too hard, right? We’ll learn together.”

“Okay,” mumbled Spencer against his chest. “Thanks. What would I do without you?”

“Die young,” said Rossi honestly. “Let’s not do that, huh?”


	4. Flying

Things got interesting when the kid went to college.

Not that they weren’t interesting before, like pretending to be William on the phone so they could get the gas turned back on was interesting, or like helping Spencer steal his mother’s bank card so they could buy groceries was interesting. Or appearing to worried looking onlookers with his wings hidden, so that they didn’t think the ten-year-old trundling around with a shopping cart of groceries was unsupervised could be interesting. But they were a sad kind of interesting, compounded by silently watching Spencer talk his mother down from yet another paranoid break before going to his room to hold the boy as he cried himself to sleep.

College was the _fun_ kind of interesting. Almost.

“I can’t believe we’re at college and you’re _thirteen,_ ” Rossi whined, poking around the empty room. Spencer sat on his bed, kicking his sneakers in the air and examining the empty single across from his. “You can’t do shit that’s fun. What are we going to _do_?”

Spencer blinked, poking his glasses up his nose. “Uh, learn?” he tried, and Rossi snorted. “Isn’t that what I’m here for?”

“You do enough learning,” Rossi told him cheerfully. “College is for _fun_.” Spencer didn’t seem overly convinced. “Hey, come on, at least at college I _expect_ you to get into trouble.”

“I’m not going to get into trouble,” Spencer replied instantly, which turned out to be a downright bald-faced fucking lie.

“I’m overworked,” Rossi growled, digging Spencer out from under the stack of library books that had toppled onto him from the shelf above four weeks into his college career. “And Piaget just tried to murder you.”

“I was _defending_ his theories,” Spencer said, his forehead bloody and eye-blackening. “ _Ow_.”

Two months later, he fell down a flight of stairs and broke his wrist. Rossi considered applying for overtime.

“Do they actually pay you?” Spencer asked curiously as Rossi filled out his lecture notes for him since his right hand was in a blank white cast. Rossi had offered to draw on it. Probably wisely, Spencer had declined. “In _what?”_

“Booze and pretty lady angels,” Rossi said glibly, wincing when Spencer looked a little _too_ curious. “I’m kidding.” Last thing he needed was the kid and his blooming pubescent hormones zeroing in on ‘pretty lady’—

“Can you actually get intoxicated?” Spencer queried, and Rossi sighed. Maybe he was lucky. Maybe Spencer was never going to grow up. He was just gonna keep getting gawkier, taller, clumsier, and probably end up marrying his degrees. All of them.

Rossi decided that the wisest course of action right then was to pop back to Nevada, at Spencer’s cautious request, and check on Diana. It had been the only way he’d gotten the kid to actually agree to go to college and leave the house that was becoming more like a prison every day. “Yeah, I’ll check on your mom for you,” he’d promised, and he intended to keep that promise.

And he wouldn’t tell Spencer that today the windows were covered in tin foil; he’d just quietly remove it. He wouldn’t tell him that there was no food in the cupboards; he’d just grab her bank card and fill them up with as many simple meals as they’d learned over the past few years. He certainly wouldn’t be telling Spencer that he found Diana curled in the bathtub with a photo of her son and nothing else, not even clothes.

“Not you again,” she said, when Rossi opened the door and stepped in. “This is your fault, you know.”

Rossi sighed, “I know,” and held his hand out to her. She raised the photo threateningly, like she was going to beat him with her eight-year-old until he stopped being so feathery and obnoxiously real. “And you’re off your meds, Diana. Again?”

“You won’t tell him,” she said, lowering the photo and curling her knees to her bare chest. “I know you won’t. You haven’t yet.”

Rossi stared at her, then walked out to get her a blanket. “No,” he said finally, walking back in with the blanket and tossing it at her so she could wrap it around herself tight. “I won’t.” He cooked her dinner and then went back to Spencer and what he did tell him was, “She’s coping.”

 

* * *

 

To Spencer’s complete and utter horror, part of the college agreeing to take him on in their ‘Gifted and Talented Youth Program’ was that he went to monthly meet-ups with other ‘Gifted and Talented’ in the area his same age. Rossi was delighted by this, mostly because the entire hall was _filled_ with dweeby little Spencers and _his_ Spencer still managed to be the most awkward one there.

“Say, ‘hi my name is Spencer and I like science’,” he suggested as Spencer slunk around the lunch table set up for the kiddies and refused to speak to anyone. “Fine, don’t then. Walk up and just _smile_ at someone. Make friends!”

Spencer scowled and found a corner to pick at his cake in. Rossi sighed, peering around at the small clusters of nervous looking kids being forced into socializing by parents and aides alike. Spencer’s aide, well used to his charge, was reading a book and ignoring everyone.

“Fine,” Rossi declared, and stalked off to find someone small and dorky. A particular kind of small and dorky… like… his eyes skimmed the room and found a mousey looking girl in a shirt that declared _Come on and Slam_ with a picture of a duck and a basketball. Rossi blinked at the shirt, decided not to question it, and said, “Oi, see that skinny looking spit of a thing over there? He’s nice. You think he looks just _splendid_. Go say hi.”

The girl looked around, peering thoughtfully at Spencer.

“He likes ducks,” Rossi tried hopefully. What did girls like? Boys? Did they like boys at thirteen? “Also, he’s, uh, super cute. Real spiffy.”

God, he was getting old.

The girl, interest seemingly piqued by the mention of ‘spiffy’, brushed her pants off and walked determinedly over to Spencer, who turned comically wide-eyed when he realized an actual human being was about to attempt to communicate with him.

“Hi,” the girl said with a bright grin. Oh boy, maybe Rossi had miscalculated. This girl didn’t seem socially awkward at _all_. “I’m Elizabeth. You look like fun. We’re friends now!”

“Shit yes you are,” Rossi agreed cheerfully.

Spencer just went, “Um I err, but, um,” and then choked on his cake.

“Good,” Rossi sighed. “Good mouth words, kid, just wonderful. Brilliant. _Genius._ ”

And so, a beautiful and very short-lived friendship was born. The two kids bonded over Spencer babbling apologies while picking cake crumbs from her shirt and then they bonded over a mutual appreciation of Star Wars and then Rossi kind of lost track of the bonding because they started ranting about cosmological models and metaphysics. The bonding abruptly ended three months later when Elizabeth declared them to be ‘dating’ and promptly kissed Spencer.

On the mouth.

Rossi was _chuffed_.

Spencer, on the other hand, said, “Ah, thank you,”, patted her on the shoulder, and walked out of the hall.

“That’s not how you respond to a kiss,” Rossi informed him once he’d finished giggling and managed to catch up to the speed-walking Spencer. “You don’t say ‘ah, thank you’ like she’s brought you your mail.”

“I didn’t _want_ to be kissed!” Spencer exclaimed, bright red and getting redder. “It was _wet_.”

Rossi wisely didn’t answer that, barely managing to choke back laughter only by crouching and tucking one wing over his face to hide his expression.

“You’re such an ass!” Spencer ranted, as the giggles didn’t stop. “It’s not funny! It’s _mortifying_ , I’m _mortified_ , this is the _worst_.”

“Woe is me, I’m thirteen and my life is over,” chuckled Rossi into the hock of his wing, heaving in a breath as his chest began to ache. “Come on, kid. It’s _adorable_. Young love, aww. You guys are like little fluffy baby deer trying to learn to walk.”

Spencer opened his mouth to reply, then paled. Rossi lowered his wing, still snickering, felt his smile vanish as behind him there was an audible, “Are you talking to yourself?” Spencer didn’t answer, and Rossi turned to find Elizabeth standing there looking concerned.

“Tell her no,” Rossi said. Spencer was silent. “Tell her you were talking out loud. Tell her _something_.”

Spencer said nothing.

“Okay,” Elizabeth said slowly, turning and walking away.

“Great,” Spencer mumbled after she’d left, leaving them standing alone in the warm spring air. “Now they’re going to send me to another psychiatrist…” His head was down, his shoulders bowed, and Rossi closed his eyes and cursed at everything, really. Until, “Do you think they have pamphlets on ‘How to Deal with an Overbearing Guardian Angel?’ Since you’re never going to give me _space_.” But the kid was smiling, looking back up with his usual lopsided grin.

“You’re a shit,” Rossi told him, ruffling his hair. “I’m only overbearing because you’re a catastrophe.”

“But I’m _your_ catastrophe,” Spencer said smugly. Rossi couldn’t really argue with that.

 

* * *

 

Spencer’s new program of exile lasted right up until the college, frustrated with his refusal to participate but reluctant to expel him because of it, did what colleges do best. They bureaucracied him.

“I’m your new roommate,” declared the boy standing in the doorway, slinging a bag down and grinning at the shell-shocked Spencer. “Hi. You look dorky as shit. Sweet, I love being nerdy. I hope you don’t mind jazz. Which bed is mine? How old are you? Oh cool, is this your telescope? Can you teach me to use it?”

“I don’t have a roommate,” Spencer finally managed to squeak, as Rossi rolled off of the bed that until now had been his and padded over to examine the newbie’s belongings. _Keyboard,_ he noted with a groan. _Jazz CDs,_ he noted next, and said goodbye to his eardrums and his careful attempts to culture Spencer into liking the right kinds of music.

“Well, you do and I am,” the roommate said, flopping onto Rossi’s bed. “So, hello. Did I get your name? I probably didn’t ask. Dad says I talk too much sometimes and never give people a chance to answer and—”

“Spencer,” Spencer managed, looking plaintively at Rossi, who shrugged. “Are you… going to _stay_?”

The newbie threw his arms in the air, sneakers on the bed and hair askew. “Sure fucken hope so,” he replied. “Kinda suck if I went through all that bull to get into college three years early and then they kick me out.” He paused. “Ethan, by the way. I’m Ethan. Spencer’s a cool name. Guy named Spencer invented post-it notes.”

Finally, Spencer smiled. Warily, but a smile. “Spencer Silver,” he said. Then he froze. The silence turned awkward, with Ethan patiently waiting.

“Ask him what he’s interested in,” Rossi hissed, seizing the opening.

“What sort of stuff do you like?” Spencer squeaked, turning bright red. The other boy, fifteen if he was a day, brightened.

“Oh man, all sorts!” he bellowed, volume seemingly permanently set to ‘loud’, and that was that. Spencer had a roommate.

After a while, they even managed to be friends.

Rossi took full credit for that.

 

* * *

 

It seemed impossible, but having a friend turned out to make Spencer _even_ more boring.

“All you do is study,” Rossi complained, as the two boys celebrated Spencer’s fifteenth birthday by continuing their ongoing obsession with outscoring each other in every possible way. Buried diligently in piles of books that dwarfed both of them, even Ethan who was promising to grow up broad and tall, neither had even so much as made a noise beyond the turning of pages for about six hours now. “I’m dying of boredom. My feathers are falling out. _I’m miserable and you don’t even care that I’m suffering._ ”

Spencer turned a page and ignored him.

“I know you can hear me,” Rossi scolded, inching closer and blowing in his face. Well used to that, Spencer continued ignoring him. “You’ve got a dinky little feather on that chain around your neck that says you can hear me, Squeaky.” No response. He stuck his finger into Spencer’s ear.

Spencer, with cat-like reflexes, smacked him with the book.

Ow.

“Uh?” Ethan said, looking up and staring at his roommate. “Mild seizure there, Spence?”

“Saw a bug,” Spencer replied quickly, scowling at Rossi. “Thought I would _squash_ it if it didn’t _leave me alone_.”

“Uh huh,” Ethan hummed, going back to his book. Despite not sharing in Spencer’s eidetic memory and reading minutely slower than him, the boy had outscored Spencer by one point in an IQ test the week before. Spencer hadn’t forgiven him for that yet.

“Fine,” Rossi moaned, well put upon. “I’ll _go_. Slink away like an unwanted _pet_ and maybe I won’t come back and you’ll be so sad and guilty and who will be there to help you? Not dear old Rossi. Dear old Rossi will be elsewhere, looking after someone who _cares_.”

He was ignored.

“ _Children,_ ” huffed Rossi, and shoved over Spencer’s carefully sorted stacks of books before teleporting away with a cackle. It took a blink for him to reorientate himself, staring down at Emily who was reclining in the window seat of a painfully neat bedroom, even the photos on the bedside table neatly parallel to each other. “Well, this is different.”

Emily’s mouth twitched. “Yes,” she said plainly, shifting over to make room for him. He glanced at the man sprawled shirtless and asleep on the bed before making himself comfy next to his friend, their wings brushing together. “Well, you know. It’s been years. He grew up. Still alive, I think you should note, thanks to my supreme talent.”

Rossi popped his head back up, studying the man. “Unlucky you,” he teased. “My charge is gonna be tiny and weird forever. You look bored.”

Emily shrugged. “I am bored.” She followed his gaze to the man on the bed as he startled awake, a door opening downstairs and a voice calling out for him. “He’s bored,” she added quietly, as a woman walked in and crawled onto the bed with a soft, “Hi, baby,” and kissed him hungrily. “She’s bored. That’s going to end terribly, only he hasn’t realized it yet.”

“Lawyering not working out for him then,” Rossi said, dropping his head back to the ground and tuning out the conversation on the bed above. “You sound _fond_ , Emily. What a hypocrite you are.”

That earned him a dead arm. “Fuck you,” she snapped. “At least I didn’t let my charge _name_ me, Rossi.” But her eyes skipped back to the man as he stood and made some wry joke, his face softening as he stared at the woman. Softening, but not smiling. “Aaron is… an intense man. He was an intense boy and then he was a broken boy and now… he’s just intense. And nowhere in there was he just _him_. I feel that, you know. We are what we are and we’re never given the chance to be something else… and no one gave him a chance either.”

Rossi stared at her. “Are you thinking of _quitting_ , Miss Abi?” he asked, only half kidding. She sounded… done. Exhausted. Sad. “We don’t quit.”

She laughed, smacking him with a wing as she stood. “Don’t worry,” she told him, “we’re not done until we both decide we’re done. I’m not gonna leave you to flap around on your own, Fledgling.”

“I’m older than you,” he said grumpily, touched by her reassurance anyway. Not that he needed the reassurance, but… still. He faltered for a heartbeat, wondered what that meant for her when his job with Spencer was finished and he was… done.

But he didn’t ask.

“How’s the kid’s head, anyway?” she asked, following her charge down the stairs to the kitchen where he listlessly made dinner, expression clear that he’d rather be anywhere else. On the table, a stack of files caught Rossi’s eyes. Cases from Aaron’s work, no doubt, each one carefully labelled. _MacKenny Murder_ sat on top, and he looked away quickly, the memory of the man who’d hunted Spencer burning up in the back of his mind. “Any more headaches?”

“A few,” Rossi said. The subject bothered him. “None since he started college anyway. Maybe it was the heat.”

Emily frowned, stealing a carrot stick from Aaron’s plate as he walked past and chewing on it thoughtfully. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe you should tell Batnoam. Migraines without reason can mean a multitude of things.”

Rossi snorted. “Either you’re getting at that he has a brain tumour or that he’s sighted,” he replied. “Both are ridiculous. They’re just _headaches_.” Realizing she was staring at him with one perfect eyebrow cocked, he looked back to find his wings mantled angrily. “And I’m not as upset as this makes me look,” he added uselessly.

“He’s indispensable for a reason,” was all she’d reply.

“You’re just cranky because your boy got old and boring,” he snapped. “And you’re jealous that mine is still _fun_!” He teleported before she could reply, the space in his chest where a human would have a heart hammering miserably. She _was_ jealous of Spencer. The kid was great. Great fun, great company, great—

The room popped into existence around him with a _thwop_ and an “Evening!” as he barked a greeting to his wayward kiddo.

Who threw a book at him with a shriek and dived under the bedcovers.

Ow.

“The fuck was that for?” Rossi growled, rubbing his arm where the corner had smacked him. That was going to _bruise._ Or not, he realized, as he tugged his fingers away and noted traces of blood on the tips. The damn thing, thrown by the one singular person in this world who _could_ hurt him physically, had cut him. Uneasy with blood, completely unused to it, he decided not to look at the damage and instead kicked his charge’s bedpost. “Oi! You do that to everyone who appears suddenly in your room without warning?” On second thought, maybe he shouldn’t tell him off for this…

“Go away,” said the bedcovers. “Just go, please.”

Rossi blinked, nonplussed. “Did you have a fight with Noisy?” he asked, glancing to Ethan’s empty bed. “No? That’s not it?” No answer. He looked down at the book the kid was reading, some complicated science-y looking… some science-y looking textbook with something else shoved inside. He nudged it with his foot, the textbook sliding off with a thump. “Ah.”

Silence.

Rossi swallowed. Well. This was…

Hm.

“Would it make this less excruciating for the both of us if I remind you that I am a guardian angel who throughout the course of my _very_ long life have guarded people during all moments?” he tried, and the bedcovers made a horrified kind of gasping sound. “No? Okay. How about I go with a much more soothing ‘congratulations you’ve discovered that you have genitals and, no, God doesn’t actually care that much what you do with them.’ Consensually.”

The bedcovers shrunk in enough that Rossi was pretty sure the boy had simply willed himself out of existence from sheer humiliation under there.

He tried one last thing. “How about,” he said gently, inching closer to the bed, “I just say that perhaps it is time I gave you a little space, kid. When you want it. Our relationship isn’t exactly _traditional_. But you have to promise to be responsible with that space… no sneaking out or putting yourself in danger while I’m not with you, okay? And… wear the feather.”

The moment stretched, heavy and miserable, until a ruffled, red-eyed, pink-faced head popped out from under the covers. “Please,” Spencer managed, his voice thick with shame. “Just… that would be… please.”

Rossi nodded, shifting back to give him room to recover. The magazine bumped his foot as he moved to Ethan’s bed and sat down, and he paused again. “Ah… do you…” Spencer was frozen like a deer in headlights, staring at him. “Do you want to talk about… well, that?”

Spencer blinked. Once. Twice, and Rossi wondered if he’d accidentally broken him. “I do _not_ ,” Spencer finally breathed, “want the _sex_ talk from a winged manifestation of God’s Grace.”

Rossi winced. This was awful. _This_ was purely the reason angels didn’t have kids. Well, that and the whole genderless/sexless being thing: “I’m more talking about the… ah… men,” he said weakly, and Spencer vanished back under the covers with a mortified squeak. “That being… something that you might want to talk about.”

“I want to die,” replied the bedcovers. “Just kill me.”

“Can’t do that,” Rossi said, feigning cheer. “Out of my job description.” The bedcovers didn’t reply, and Rossi let them sulk. If he needed to talk, Rossi wasn’t going anywhere.

He did, however, slide the magazine out of sight before Ethan came home.

 

* * *

 

“This,” Ethan stated blandly, “was not what I planned.” Horrified, Spencer pressed closed behind him, casting one lingering, worried look at Rossi lurking by the door of the house party they’d just crashed. “He said it was a few friends, I swear.”

Rossi doubted the party was just a _few_ friends, unless a few actually encompassed several hundred friends and their partners _and_ their respective alcoholic drinks. Spencer, in vast juxtaposition to every other college-aged reveller in the place, looked painfully young. Ethan, almost eighteen and just as broad as Rossi had always suspected the lug was going to grow to be, at least _sort_ of fit in.

“I don’t want to be here,” Spencer said, his voice drowned out by the music. “Ethan, I _really_ can’t handle being here.”

“Okay, okay,” Ethan soothed, looking around frantically for the people who’d dragged them here. “I’ll make excuses and we’ll go. Just… stick close.”

“And don’t drink anything,” Rossi added cheerfully, shoving a dancer away before they could stumble into Spence and send him flying. The girl looked confused, looking at and through Rossi before shrugging and moving away. “Or, you know, breathe near any open bottles, light weight.”

Spencer rolled his eyes at him and hung behind Ethan through the most painfully loud hour of Rossi’s last decade, eventually sticking to the wall as Ethan made excuse after excuse and still managed to get hauled back into the action.

“Well, at least you’re not actually alone,” Rossi told the boy to try and cheer him up, Ethan having vanished into the crowd for ‘one last drink, seriously, I promise’. “You’ve got me, and no one is going to notice if you talk to me.”

Spencer, always wary of turning into his mother, didn’t respond, just shuttered his gaze and went away somewhere inside his head, nursing a plastic cup full of lukewarm soda in one hand. Finally reappearing, half tipsy and bright-eyed, Ethan caught Spencer’s arm and dragged him into the crowd with a whoop. Soda flying—barely avoiding getting his wing drenched—Rossi hurtled after them as they burst from the front door and leapt down onto the rain-damp lawn.

“Aha, freedom!” hollered Ethan, as loud as ever, letting go of Spencer’s arm and spinning in a wild, giddy circle. “Sweet, sweet freedom, how I missed thee!”

“Are you drunk?” Spencer asked, following much more sedately, his sneakers squeaking on the grass.

“Possibly, yes.” Ethan grinned sloppily, bounding back and slinging an arm around his friend. “Come on. Scenic route home, it’s an _exemplary_ night.”

Rossi, not really one for scenic routes, followed at his own pace. Spencer let himself be hauled along at a startling speed, finally giving into the drunk boy’s exuberance. “What are you doing?” he shouted after Ethan as his friend lurched away towards a brightly lit pavilion across the black lawn. The night was fresh around them, mosquitos humming warningly nearby, and Rossi rolled his eyes and left them to it.

_Click_ went the automated sprinklers when Spencer was halfway towards his friend, turning on and drenching them both. They shrieked in unison; Spencer bolting for the safety of the path and Ethan chasing him down and carrying him back under the spray, unashamed of the fact he was fireman-carrying his wiggling roommate. Aware that this was going to probably end with him going under the sprinklers to help Spencer lug an unconscious roommate home as the spirits hit him properly, Rossi popped away to the room to grab a towel and a dry shirt.

“Kid owes me,” he muttered grumpily, annoyed with the determination of youth to be _frivolous_ , sniffing every towel he found until he picked up one that only smelled slightly of boy. _Thwop_ and he was back in the park, but the boys weren’t under the sprinklers anymore.

Finding Spencer standing by the monkey bars with his expression muddled, Ethan silent and withdrawn on the swing set nearby, Rossi padded over to his charge. “The heck happened?” he asked, and Spencer turned away. “Kid?”

“Wanna go home?” Ethan called, lurching unsteadily out of the swing. Spencer just nodded, leading the way as Ethan plodded listlessly behind. Rossi followed, perplexed. Back in the room, both stripped wet clothes off and threw them into the laundry basket, the atmosphere incredibly tense. Rossi, ever curious, hung around the edge and waited for _something_ to hint to what had gone wrong in the five minutes he’d left them alone.

“Spence,” Ethan said finally, stepping close to his friend. And then closer again, his fingers trailing on Spencer’s hand. Rossi blinked. That was… very close. “Spence… I’m sorry I kissed you.” Spencer swallowed, bare-chested except for the towel he’d been using to ruffle his mad curls dry draped around his shoulders. Rossi watched his chest hitch, the damp feather bumping on his bony sternum.

Oh. Well now.

“Are you mad?” Ethan tried again, his face burning with such an intense mix of shame and misery and _hope_ that Rossi couldn’t really bring himself to be mad at him.

“Yes,” Spencer snapped, spinning around to face his friend before adding a heavy, “No… not really.” Ethan waited patiently, well used to his friend’s roundabout manner. “I… you’re drunk. And it’s _shit_ that you did that drunk because I know it doesn’t mean anything and now I have to think about that every time I look and you and—”

Ethan kissed him again, cutting him off mid-sentence.

“Woah,” Rossi said, blinking. And then, when it became apparent that neither boy was stopping the kiss or breaking it up or honestly, they were actually getting a bit… “Err. I’m gonna…”

_Thwop._

“Hello,” said Emily, perched on the roof with a beer and a book. “I’m sulking. What’s up with you?”

“Puberty,” Rossi said glumly, sitting down next to her and taking her beer. Draining half, he handed it back. “He’s sixteen.”

“Ouch,” Emily replied, waving the beer away when she tried to hand it back. “Tough year. Mine’s joining the FBI.” Rossi processed that for a moment, looking up at the yellowed moon. “Want to trade?”

“God, no,” Rossi said, and they enjoyed the night together.

It was probably going to be the last quiet one either of them would get for a while.

 

* * *

 

“I mean,” Spencer had said, when Rossi had whined about having to deal with two smoochy love-sick teenagers, “it could be worse. I haven’t almost died in a while.” That, Rossi would think later as he whupped his wings at the two swans trying to drown his charge, was fucking foreshadowing with a capital Fuck.

“I can’t believe you!” Rossi ranted an hour later, sitting at a hospital in a scene startlingly like the one where they’d met. “You were _riding_ your bike and you almost fucking _died_. How do you _do_ that? Do you _like_ dying? Are you suicidal? Is sucking down your boyfriend’s tongue not _enough_ of a thrill for you, you also have to ride into a fucking _duck pond_ and piss off the swans and scare the fucking ducks and almost shitting _drown_ all in one day!”

“You seem upset,” Spencer said mildly, poking at the brand-new cast encasing his freshly broken wrist. _Again._ “Are you upset? You should relax more. Have a holiday.” He grinned widely, stupid with painkillers and probably a little concussed, judging by the neat row of stitches under his hairline and his still bloody face. There was pond weed in his hair. “Put your wings up.” He laughed, helplessly, as though this was the height of all humour.

“I hate you,” Rossi groaned, folding his wings over his head and refusing to speak to him for the rest of that afternoon.

“I can’t believe you!” ranted Ethan later that night. Rossi was smug. “You need to take care of yourself! What the fucking fuck, Spencer? How am I supposed to deal with my boyfriend _drowning_ in a _duck pond_?”

“I have a headache,” Spencer whined in reply, rolling on the bed in mock agony. Rossi snorted. _Loudly_. “And you’re shouting. And it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t decide to crash into the pond, it just… happened.”

“You suck, you fucking suck, you suck _so_ bad,” Ethan grumbled, but he slunk onto the bed and wrapped his arms around the other boy anyway, cuddling him close and brushing his lips against his hair. “And you _scared_ the shit out of me, wiener. I was… really scared, for a second…”

Spencer went quiet, his face nuzzled into Ethan’s chest. “I’m sorry,” he said finally.

“Oh, _he_ gets a sorry,” Rossi complained, kicking the wall crankily. “I get nothing. Ten years of chasing your ass around your own grave and I don’t even get a _kiss_.”

“I’m kinda hungry and I don’t feel well,” Spencer said suddenly, jerking upright. Rossi eyed him, not at all impressed with his attempts to get Ethan out of the room. _Subtle._ “Do you think you can get some food? Anything, really. I don’t want to be a bother…”

Ethan _hmm_ ’ed. “Yeah, probably. You be alright while I’m gone?” He really did look worried, tracing his fingers over the stitches.

“Sure,” Spencer said with a smile, and Ethan vanished out the door. “Rossi…”

“What, kid?” Rossi asked, tired and grumpy from his swan beat-down earlier. “I’m not going anywhere. You battered yourself up, you can deal with it.”

Spencer shook his head, wincing as that probably aggravated his headache. “No, no… just. You were really, uh… violent. With the swans.”

Rossi blinked. “The swans?” Spencer nodded. “The swans that were… trying to drown you? And you’re upset that I got a bit _slappy_ with them?”

“Not upset.” Spencer bit at his lip, wiggling around on the bed. “Uh. Curious. Would you have… hurt them? To save me? I mean, they didn’t really do anything wrong, they were protecting their nest and I probably wouldn’t have drowned, I was just a bit…”

“Knocked stupid,” Rossi snapped.

“Knocked stupid,” Spencer agreed weakly, squinting at the light.

“Spence,” Rossi said, something heavy settling in his stomach. “I need you to understand something. I will do _anything_ to keep you safe, okay? _Anything._ You come first, before absolutely anything else. Do you understand?” Spencer swallowed heavily, nodding with aggravating slowness as he puzzled that over. “Don’t put me in a position where I have to make hard choices. Because you _will_ come first.”

Spencer stared, eyes as round as dinner-plates as the implications sunk fully in. “Why?” he breathed. Rossi frowned as he tried to work out which of that was too complicated for the genius. “What makes me so important? I’m… I’m _no one_ , Rossi. What makes me so important that you’d choose me over everything else?”

The door banged open, Ethan bustling back in. Always noisy. Spencer’s attention switched to him, his complexion greenish and ghastly as he tried to reorientate his worldview to include the idea that he was integral to something.

“Because you’re indispensable, Spence,” Rossi said softly, finding a perch on Ethan’s bed as the two teenagers made a nest of food and blankets on Spencer’s. Spencer twitched, clearly listening but practised at hiding that. “I can’t lose you.” Spencer couldn’t reply, so Rossi lay down on the bed, closed his eyes, and thought of Emily. Wondered how she was going. Wondered where either of them were going, any of them really.

Wondered how this was all going to end.

Three hours later, he was jerked out of a doze by Ethan chuckling and saying, “Get off me, you’re such a heavy _lump_.” Rossi peered over, seeing Spencer curled on his boyfriend’s lap with his head lolled almost obscenely into his crotch. “Also, your mouth there is distracting.”

“Okay, ew,” Rossi grumbled as Spencer sat up sluggishly. “Please don’t. Not in front of the old man.”

“I don’t…” Spencer slurred, and then threw up. Ethan surged backwards with a yelp, lap liberally coated in vomit, and Spencer toppled grossly sideways.

“Catch him!” roared Rossi, leaping upright. Ethan, spurred by the force of Rossi’s suggestion as well as his own fright, grabbed Spencer by his shirt collar before the boy slammed headfirst onto the carpet, sagging as he went limp.

“Oh, fuck,” Ethan said, going white and rolling Spencer right way up to find him completely out of it. “Oh fuck fuck fuck, help, someone, help!” The last word was shrieked as he tried to both hug Spencer close and lean back for his cell. Spencer shuddered, opening his eyes and moaning as the light hit them. “Spence, hey, hey, talk to me. Come on, what the shit was that?”

“Just… headache. Hurts,” Spencer whined, and Rossi went cold. Migraine. A bad one.

“Stay with him,” he urged Ethan, and bolted from the room. Up the hall, the RA’s door was open, the boy reclined on his bed with a textbook open in his lap and a pen to his lips, eyes up and on the door as though he’d distantly processed the shriek but hadn’t realized it was legitimate fear. “Oi!” Rossi roared, and the boy twitched and looked around. “Move—room eight, now! Go, _go_!”

With a thump the textbook hit the ground, and Rossi stepped back to let him surge past. He followed just in time to hear Ethan’s shrill, “He’s not okay!” and the distinct sounds of nine-one-one being called.

Fuck.

 

* * *

 

Emily popped in around two a.m.

“Felt you stressing from New York,” she said quietly, stepping up beside the silent bed where Spencer was curled in a huddled ball of misery. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Migraine,” Rossi said, keeping his voice low but still wincing when Spencer twitched at the sound of it. “It’s not responding to any pain medication they’re giving him. They’re going to…” Emily waited, stepping a little closer so their wings tucked together. He leaned into that embrace, thankful, always, for his friend. “They’re going to do tests in the morning,” he managed, the heavy feeling in his gut from before becoming a sick twist, “on his… his brain.”

“If it’s not a tumour or anything noticeable, have you considered…” Emily murmured, leaning her head against his shoulder and trailing off.

“That it’s a demon?” Rossi snapped harshly. “You want me to consider that maybe this idiot kid is drawing a demon down on himself and responding to that? He’s _not_ sighted, Emily!” He _couldn’t_ be. The Sighted… they didn’t live long lives. The game was right about one thing. The angel never really got away from the devil. A lifetime of running, and the devil always caught up.

“And if he is?” she asked, dark eyes glinting in the light from the dim overhead the nurses had left on so they could check his vitals every two hours.

Rossi looked down at his sleeping charge, watching his eyelids flicker in the grim blue light. “Then my job just got a lot more fucking complicated.”


	5. Soaring

Spencer got the all-clear and also a boyfriend with an obsessive need to know absolutely everything there was to know about the human brain.

“Come to bed,” Spencer whined, flopped on his single bed with his head and feet hanging off either side, expression hang-dog. “I want hugs.”

Ethan grunted, continuing to page restlessly through the medical journal he was sunk into, his eyes shadowed. “After. Busy.”

Spencer scowled. With due care for his charge’s delicate sensibilities, Rossi mimed climbing up onto the bed and hugging him instead, earning himself a pillow to the side of the head. The sulking commenced after that and, if Spencer hadn’t taken up buying an unholy amount of cooking magazines for Rossi to read, the boredom would probably have reached critical levels. A pen started scratching. Rossi looked up to find Spencer attempting to look innocent as he tilted a notepad towards him.

_Make him stop. I’m fine and him getting all weird about it isn’t going to help._

“Well, you did kind of swan dive onto the floor after projectile vomiting on him,” Rossi pointed out. “Things like that scare people, Spence. You _scared_ him.” Spencer blinked. The pen scratched some more.

_But I’m **fine**. How is it scary?!? I’m the one who was sick?!_

“Take a second with that big old brain of yours to imagine how you would feel if it was Ethan unconscious in your arms,” Rossi said quietly. Watching the boy’s face, he saw the exact moment that he paled. “Yeah. There we go. He loves you, kid. He’s petrified he’s going to lose you to something he can’t fight against.”

_I’m not going anywhere._

Rossi raised an eyebrow. “I’m paid to ensure that, remember? So why are you telling me?” There was a long beat of silence as Spencer stared at him, pen tapping on the notepad. Ethan coughed, rubbing his eyes and slumping for a moment before turning to the next page and grimly reading on.

Spencer slid to his feet, padding over to Ethan and wrapping his arms around his torso, head leaning on his boyfriend’s shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured, resting his mouth against the shell of Ethan’s ear. “I’m okay.”

“I know,” Ethan replied, turning into that embrace and letting his head loll against Spencer’s chest. Something in Rossi’s chest ached a little at the raw need in the gesture, the immeasurable trust the two boys were placing in each other. “I just…”

“I know,” Spence murmured, tugging Ethan closer. “I know.”

Rossi looked away, feeling like an interloper. A wobbly pile of books stood next to Spencer’s bed: books on engineering, books on neurological science, books on… the occult? He plucked one out, careful not to topple the whole stack, and flipped open to a page bookmarked with a sheet of notepaper liberally covered with Spencer’s scratchy handwriting.

_Signs of demonic possession re: migraines_

“Oh boy, we are gonna talk about this,” Rossi snapped, Spencer twitching at his sudden exclamation. “You do _not_ have a demon. They can’t possess the angel-bound, which is—” He stopped, realization sinking in. “Ah. Probably exactly why I’m here. Well, fuck.”

Spencer gave him a very strange look, one that probably looked even stranger to Ethan. “Bed?” Ethan said following Spencer’s gaze and frowning at the apparently-empty space.

“Yeah,” Spencer said, despite Rossi’s scowl. “Yeah. I think so.”

Ignoring Rossi’s spluttering about the _demon possession_ , the two boys slipped into the bed, wrapping themselves around each other. “Tomorrow,” Rossi warned him, earning a sedate nod disguised as a yawn from Spencer. “Tomorrow, we talk.”

But tomorrow arrived with another migraine, another trip to the ER, the same battery of tests.

“It’s not demonic possession,” Rossi reassured Spencer as the boy curled on his side in the darkened room they were letting him try to sleep the migraine away in. An IV of pain medication wound under the blanket, doing nothing to help him. Spencer, listless and woozy with the combination of the haziness the drugs were giving him and the effects of the migraine on its eighth hour, didn’t reply. “You can’t _be_ possessed. My link to you prevents that, absolutely. But—and this is a big but—if you, uh, have a certain ability… you can sense them. If they’re nearby. Generally, nearby and actively focused on… well, if you’re reacting, focused on _you_.”

Glazed eyes flicked up to him. “Wha’s that mean?” Spencer mumbled into the pillow, his mouth slipping open and tongue flashing over his lips. Rossi recognised the slack-skinned look, reaching for a basin and the nurse call button at the same time.

“It means it’s looking for you,” Rossi admitted, wincing. “Or me. Most likely me, since you haven’t done a damn thing to draw attention to yourself. It can’t sense me—nor can I tell what it is, it’ll look perfectly human to me. And those we guard tend to be appealing to demons… they have certain things in common.” Spencer, busy hurling into the basin, didn’t respond. The nurses appeared, soothing him better than Rossi could, so the angel retreated to the window.

Demons didn’t like getting killed. Neither did angels. It certainly wasn’t on Rossi’s bucket list. Luckily, there were only a few people capable of doing either of those things. Unluckily, Rossi’s mere presence tied to Spencer’s life meant _he_ was one of those people. Rossi touched his arm where a flung book years ago had broken the skin. And that was the price they paid for guarding humans so meticulously; if a random person took a gun and fired it in Rossi’s direction, the bullet would whistle harmlessly through.

If Spencer did it?

“You’re not going to get possessed,” he reassured his charge, shivering at the thought. “Or even touched by it. I have a plan…”

 

* * *

 

Rossi was having a _good_ day. It was a damn good day, for him, for Spencer, even for Diana, until their visit to Nevada ended with her flinging a saucepan at her son’s retreating back as she snarled something about _winged spies_. It would have hit him too, if Rossi hadn’t tugged him out of the way.

They travelled alone to the airport.

After that, it was a bad day. A bad flight home with Spencer silent and withdrawn, a bad cab-ride to the campus, a bad trudge up the stairs to his dorm room. Rossi didn’t try to talk Spencer out of his misery because he knew from hard-learned experience that there was no talking the kid out of a Mom-meltdown induced funk.

“Woo, it’s my genius boyfriend!” Ethan hollered as soon as they stepped through the door. “Missed you! How was Nevada? Wanna see my—” He stopped. Ethan was many things: brash, loud, sometimes blunt. One thing he was not was stupid. “You’re upset.”

“I just…” Spencer closed his eyes, throwing his suitcase down with uncharacteristic venom. “I just need to sleep. And…” The eyes opened, plaintive. “You. Can I just… be with you, for a little bit? Please.” Rossi winced, inching past and inspecting Ethan’s bed for gross before sinking onto it. He doubted they’d use it anyway, knowing only too well how painfully desperate for validation of his worth Spencer could get after his mother— _not_ his mother, Rossi reminded himself, but his mother’s illness—rejected him. Something Rossi had never quite managed to fill, he suspected.

“Yes,” Ethan said softly, as quiet as Rossi had ever heard him. “Come here.” They curled onto Spencer’s bed together, silent and miserable and occasionally brushing their mouths together. Rossi rolled over to ignore them, picking up one of his magazines and paging through it wistfully dreaming of a real house with a real kitchen and a real—

There was an audible moan behind him.

“You’re kidding me, right?” he snapped, bolting upright. “Seriously, I am _tired_. And you’re going to make me go out in the hall so you can fumble around with each other in a _clear_ violation of the age of con—” He stopped rambling because Spencer was looking at him strangely with his eyes dark and hungry and Ethan was frozen. What? What had he missed?

“I don’t think that’s a good idea…” Ethan murmured, leaning his head against Spencer’s chest. Spencer kept looking at Rossi, some message he was trying to send passing across his face. “You’re upset.”

“I told you,” Spencer said, pressing tighter against his partner. “I want _you_. If you want.”

“Kid,” Rossi said warily, because, shit, he’d been around a long time and seen all kinds of fallout from decisions made in the heat of the moment because of loneliness and an over-eager dick. “Think about it before you decide.”

“Okay,” Ethan breathed, fumbling for the bedside cupboard and barely disguising the eagerness in his voice. “Yes. If you’re sure.”

Spencer looked at Rossi, dead in the eye. And he smiled. “Yeah, I am,” he reassured them both, jerking his head towards the door. Rossi went. There were some things he didn’t need to see, especially not done by a guy who Rossi had used to cook dinosaur shapes into his pancakes for. But he paused before he left, looking back at the bare-chested Spencer with the feather hanging from his thin neck.

“You need me, I’m seconds away,” he said, and teleported downstairs to shout at the game show the other students were watching in the communal rec room.

When he returned, the room was dark and silent. He waited for his eyes to adjust, studying the two boys tangled together asleep on the bed, the covers slipping from bare hips to pool on the floor. He remembered, suddenly, being sure that Spencer would be a child forever.

And he thought maybe his kid had grown up without him realizing.

“How utterly mortal of me,” he muttered crankily, rustling his wings and stooping to readjust the blanket more firmly over them. “Disgustingly human,” he continued, as he tucked them in.

Spencer twitched, his eyes flickering open. Not completely awake and definitely not aware.

“It’s me,” Rossi reassured him, and couldn’t help adding, “You okay?”

Spencer smiled stupidly, eyelids drooping. “Yeah, Dad,” he mumbled, and drifted off. “Night.”

“Huh,” said Rossi, and decided to pretend he wasn’t pleased.

 

* * *

 

His plan, as it turned out, took another six months to have to be put into play.

They were walking near the infamous duck pond, the night still and quiet around them. Walking, Spencer called it. Rossi reckoned it was far more apt to call it ‘sulking’ after a small disagreement about how deep a frying pan had to be before it became a saucepan turned into a blistering argument between Spencer and Ethan.

“It’s cold,” Rossi whined, flapping his wings to try to shed some of the dew collecting on them. “My legs hurt. I’m hungry. Ethan’s probably eating all our candy.”

“It’s my candy,” Spencer complained absently, sitting on the shore of the pond with his knees to his chin. “Not yours. You don’t pay for it.”

“I keep you alive to eat it,” Rossi grumbled, right as Spencer twitched and winced. “What now? Please tell me you didn’t just get bitten by something deadly. I really cannot deal with—”

“Um,” Spencer said, looking up with his hand cupped to his mouth. Rossi blinked. In the dim moonlight, the boy’s hand and shirt glinted with black. “This is new?” He dropped his hand, blood sheeting liberally from his nose. “Uh… I don’t…” He swayed.

Rossi froze as Spencer toppled lightly down. _Thwump_ went his charge’s body on the wet grass, almost slumping into the water. A duck nearby quacked furiously. Rossi stumbled towards him, wings flared and eyes casting around the empty square. Nothing moved but the trees and the scudding clouds on the blue-black sky. Under his hands, Spencer was still, his eyes struggling to open as he dipped in and out of consciousness. Rossi caught that uneven gaze and he made a snap decision. Whatever was fucking him up, it was _here_.

“Don’t make a sound,” he murmured, his feathers ruffling with something that could have been fear if he’d admit to it. “It’s close.”

Spencer’s eyes widened.

Luckily, the kid was longer than he was wide. Rossi scooped him up, feeling his head loll grossly onto his shoulder, and he teleported. _Thwop._ Spencer screamed. Of course he fucking did—teleporting _hurt_ humans, and the further they went, the more it hurt. And this was far. This was so fucking far, and Rossi dropped to his knees and swore, feeling the boy convulse slightly in his arms.

Emily appeared next to him, her expression stunned. “Sikarbaal, what the _fuck_?” she snarled, eyes snapping to the boy shuddering in his arms and the blood smeared liberally on his face. “Aaron’s going for his fucking gun in there!”

“He’s sighted,” Rossi managed, laying the boy flat on his back, his eyes rolled back so only a sliver of white was visible. The shock would fade quickly—he was pretty sure—once his body caught up with his sudden transportation. “He’s fucking sighted, Emily, and a demon found us.”

Emily gave him a look he’d remember later, a dark-eyed stare that was _definitely_ fear, and then the front door they were crumpled by swung open. “Uh oh,” she said, both the angels freezing and Spencer groaning on the veranda as his senses returned.

Aaron stepped out onto the porch. Rossi took a second to note several things, mostly useless: the man was dressed in nothing but boxer briefs, the man’s face was completely calm, and the man was _armed._ The moment paused, stretched, and there was absolutely nothing either of them could do to hide the boy as he slid up onto his elbows and stared down the muzzle of the gun. Not quite aimed at him, but to the side, and Aaron’s finger wasn’t on the trigger, but _still_.

“Wha—” Aaron managed, as Spencer’s eyes widened to a comical extent, his hair tumbling into his eyes and shedding at least two years off his actual age. He looked like a child. An absolutely shit-scared child who began to shake as he realized what he was looking at.

“Duh-don’t shoot,” he stammered, inching back. “I’m… I’m not… I don’t know…”

Aaron’s eyes scooted over the blood, the stained sweater vest, the battered tennis shoes, and he lowered the weapon. Rossi and Emily stood frozen.

“What are you doing on my property?” Aaron asked coolly, not a flicker of expression crossing his face.

“Lie,” Rossi said.

“Don’t shoot,” Emily hissed, aiming to influence the cool-eyed man.

Spencer burst into tears. Rossi blinked. For all of his oddities, Spencer was _not_ a crier. Not since his dad had left.

“Or do that,” he said, mildly impressed by Spencer’s thought processes as Aaron crouched and held the gun in the air in a placating motion as he slowly clicked the safety on and skidded it behind him on the floor, out of lunging reach.

“Okay,” Aaron said gently, shuffling forward. “Hey, hey. I’m just going to check you out, okay? I’m an FBI agent. My name is Aaron Hotchner. Can you tell me your name?”

“Lie,” Rossi repeated. Spencer, his mouth already open, snapped it shut and blinked. Very clearly thinking of a lie. Both the angels groaned as Aaron’s lips thinned.

“Riley Jenkins,” Spencer said finally, swallowing hard. “I’m Riley Jenkins. I… was going for a walk…” He looked around, frantic, “… here and I… got sick. I think. I can’t remember…”

Rossi had to hand it to him, kid was a shite liar but at least this seemed vaguely plausible.

“Were you attacked?” Aaron asked, frowning and looking around as well, his eyes scanning the road.

Spencer glanced desperately at Rossi. “I don’t know,” he managed, and Rossi groaned.

“Damnit, now he’s gonna call the cops for sure,” he said. “Tell him, you, uh…”

“Just look sad,” Emily interjected. “He’s a sucker for pouting.”

Spencer sniffed. Loudly. Wetly.

Grossly.

“Come on,” Aaron said, standing and holding his hand out. “Come inside—we’ll get you cleaned up, Riley. I promise you, I won’t hurt you. We’ll work out what happened and get you home.”

Spencer took the hand offered to him and let himself be hauled upright, following Aaron meekly into his home. Rossi and Emily followed behind, helpless to extract the kid from this situation, and—Rossi at least—highly amused by the fact that Spencer’s eyes did a _very_ obvious downward dive as Aaron walked away.

“Pervert,” Rossi said, nudging Spencer with his shoulder as they trudging into a brightly lit kitchen. Aaron gestured to the kitchen table before vanishing with his gun, likely to put it away. “You depraved little shit, I saw you staring at his ass.”

Spencer flushed but, wisely, said nothing.

“Don’t embarrass the kid,” Emily said absently, perching on the edge of the counter and biting at her nails. “It’s a great ass. I don’t even have hormones and I can tell it’s a great ass. All perky.”

Aaron reappeared, sadly dressed this time in a white cotton shirt and loose sweatpants, and scooted a chair around so he could sit in front of Spencer. Bowl of water on the table and a towel in his hands, he murmured something like, “Keep still,” and paused when Spencer twitched away from the touch. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Spencer squeaked, mouth moving garishly under his rust-red mask. “Just. Not good with… touching. Very much. Um. Sorry. I’ll stay still.”

“You can do it if it would be…” Aaron began, but Spencer shook his head firmly and didn’t twitch as the towel came up again and swiped gently at his jaw. Gaze locked firmly forward, Spencer’s cheeks reddened under the blood and Rossi could see his throat shifting as he swallowed repeatedly.

“What happened?” Emily asked quietly, sliding from the counter and touching Rossi’s arm, leading him into the next room as their charges began to talk in low voices, mostly Aaron questioning Spencer and Spencer being as non-committal as possible about his answers. “Shit, man, you just teleported to _New York_ with him. And you’re going to have to teleport back. That’s going to hurt him, badly, and exhaust you for days.”

“There’s a demon on his campus,” Rossi said. Carefully watching Emily’s expression, he saw a dark flicker of _something_ pass across her sharp features. “And he’s sighted. It got close enough to trigger _that_.” He gestured towards the kitchen table where Spencer had his chin tilted down, oogling Aaron through his lowered eyelashes as Aaron refilled the bowl. _Perve._ “It’s never done that before.”

Emily was silent for a long moment, and he could tell she was tossing up telling/not telling him something.

He’d never call her a derogatory name, but for a heartbeat, he thought about it. “What aren’t you telling me?” he growled, real anger thudding hot and harsh into his chest. If she’d hidden _anything_ from him that put Spencer in danger…

“There’s been a recall of active angels,” she said eventually, her black wings folded so tight against her back he could barely see them. “Every one of us working the States that could be spared. Except you. Batnoam was very specific—your recall means your punishment kicks in. He’s covering your ass up top.”

Rossi stared. A recall was… _unprecedented._ He’d lived a damn long time, and he’d never lived through a recall. Couldn’t even imagine what it would take to recall a half million angels from their charges.

“Why are you still here?” he asked finally, looking back at Spencer for a glance. “Why the _fuck_ are they _recalling_ us?”

“Angels are dying.” She said it bluntly, coldly. Hiding how upset she really was. The words cut him, his hands tingling as his body numbed with shock. “Someone is hunting them. Killing them, and their charges. Most of us… refused the recall.” She swallowed hard, eyes flashing and wings mantling outward with anger. “I won’t walk away from him.” He didn’t need to clarify who the _him_ was, as Aaron’s voice rumbled from the next room. “It has to be a demon, no one else _knows_ about us.”

“Not even a demon can hurt us,” Rossi corrected gently, confused. “Only the human we’re bound to. How many dead?” He could count on one hand how many they’d lost in the last decade. And three of those were deliberate choices by the angel, the other two had broken the One Rule: do not harm your charge. Malicious intent by an angel to cause harm to the human they were bound to…

Instant purgatory. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

“Thirty, approximately.” Emily shuddered, her eyes skipping to the door and back again. “They told me not to tell you when I went to their memorials… you have to tell Batnoam it could have your trace. You can’t fight this alone—thirty others couldn’t and—” She stopped, huffed, muttered, “—I couldn’t bear losing you, chicken-wings.”

Rossi shook his head slowly, still dizzy with the news and the kick-jerk of feeling at her quiet words. “No,” he said plainly. “You’ve got your reasons, I’ve got mine. But I’m staying.” He’d be damned eight times over before anything ghoul-y got their hands on _his_ kid.

“Perils of loving the mortal,” Emily said, moving closer to him and folding her wing over his, both of them looking through the doorway to their charges smiling warily at each other. “They’re so…”

“Mortal,” Rossi finished regretfully. They stood silently, the horror of being hunted hanging over their heads. Emily gripped his hand tightly; he gripped hers twice as hard. And when Spencer finally managed to fumble an excuse convincing enough that Aaron let him leave, albeit reluctantly, Rossi didn’t say goodbye to her. Because they’d see each other again. He was determined.

“What was it?” Spencer asked, jogging to keep up with Rossi’s stride as they walked far enough away from Aaron’s house that the man couldn’t watch them teleport home in the pre-dawn light. “The demon? You said it’s a demon? Why was it so much worse?”

“No idea,” Rossi lied, deflecting. “Also, you. You’ve got a kink for older men. He’s at _least_ ten years older than you, you freaky thing, and I could practically smell you thinking filthy things about him.” Spencer turned bright red and refused to talk to him for the rest of the day. Which was exactly what Rossi wanted. No point in them both being scared.

Not that Rossi was scared. He wasn’t.

Honest.

 

* * *

 

The migraines slowed. One every few months, the timeframe between them increasing, and as time dragged on and on from that terrible night, Rossi began to wonder if maybe the demon had lost them. Dropped the trace. Moved away.

As it turned out, he had bigger things to worry about than a maybe demon.

He went to Alesia. If there was one thing guarding Spencer Reid had taught him, it was that librarians knew _everything_. “Sikarbaal,” she said, frowning when she saw him loitering by the front desk with his wings arched to catch the breeze from the open window. “I didn’t expect… well, we didn’t think you’d be popping in up here again.” To her credit, she looked sad about this. Very suddenly, it occurred to him that they were probably going to _miss_ him when it was all over and he’d gotten his just rewards. That was… sobering.

“I need to know something,” he said. She blinked, tucking her delicate wings in close and folding her arms, eyes worried. “As plain as possible, please.”

“Okay, I’m worried,” she replied. “Never in the millennia I have known you have you been so modest as to admit that there’s something you don’t know.”

“When can a human be possessed by a demon?” he asked, fingers tight on the polished white wood of the counter. “And… how do you kill one?”

She stared at him. Took her glasses off, wiped the sparkling lenses even cleaner, put them back on. Breathed in deeply.

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” she asked, eyes distant. “Go to Batnoam. If… if it’s after you…”

“Alesia.”

Her mouth thinned into a shape he recognised, the wary accepting expression that Spencer used every time he needed to impart information that he didn’t like. “An unguarded human can be possessed in moments of weakened fortitude,” she said finally. “Which, is many of them, unfortunately. Fear, grief, shock, depression, terror: all of these moments can allow a demonic force to take root. These possessions are discrete, subtle, and damning. They’re also impossible to discern from the outside unless the demon makes them obvious.”

“A guarded human?”

She winced at the question. “They can’t,” she said. “Unless they explicitly and with full understanding of the consequences ask for the possession. Which, understandably, has never _really_ happened. It would take someone with extensive knowledge of demons, after all. That person would also have to be actively guarded otherwise it could be simply classed as weakened fortitude. And very likely, that person would have to be sighted in order for them to understand the full consequences.”

She was describing _Spencer_. “How do you kill them?” Rossi managed.

She frowned. “Well, with difficulty. They’re our counter, Sikarbaal. They’re just as hard to kill as we are, only they feed from the death of humans rather than the survival of them. They can fall to purgatory, but I don’t know exactly what would cause that… perhaps, if we’re being literal in the use of ‘counter’, by acting in a fashion inherently opposite to their nature.”

“What, by _not_ being massive shitheads?” Rossi asked with a snort. “Thanks… thanks, Alesia. I’m… grateful.” He turned to leave, stoking his wings gently. Maybe it would be nice to fly home. Take his time. Not that he could afford to do that. He had to stay by Spencer’s side.

He missed flying.

“Sikarbaal?” she called after him, and he paused. “You will go to Batnoam if you’re in danger, won’t you? He _does_ care about us. We’re his flock.”

He doubted that Batnoam cared about anything, honestly. Not even the hundred or so angels tied to his wing, of which Rossi was his oldest and—almost certainly—most trying. He didn’t answer, just teleported. He had a kid to keep safe.

A kid who, over the next six years, decided to make that really fucking hard.

“I think I’m going to join the FBI,” was the line that Rossi decided he was going to engrave on his headstone, not that he’d get one. But if he did, he wanted that, because it was a statement guaranteed to make him _want_ to die.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Rossi said in reply.

“You’re fucking _what_ ,” Ethan said at the same time.

Spencer, with a stubborn line to his scruffy jaw that absolutely one-hundred percent meant the kid had probably already filled in his application forms, simply picked at the weatherworn couch that the two men had bought together when they’d moved to DC and said, “I’ve had an agent reach out. He’s very interested in working alongside me. I’d be an idiot to pass that up.” What followed was the biggest fight either of them had ever had, which _somehow_ culminated in Ethan agreeing to consider joining alongside him. An agreement that culminated in this moment.

Twenty-two years old, Spencer sat in his room looking down at the wordless goodbye Ethan had left him, his FBI windbreaker still on and his induction packet on the bed next to him. Rossi stepped up next to him and didn’t say a word, just waited for the fallout.

“He’s not coming back is he?” Spencer asked softly, Ethan’s apartment keys in his hand and the drawer next to him cleaned out. His voice was dangerously devoid of anything approaching emotion.

“No,” Rossi said. “I don’t think he is. But that’s not on you.”

Spencer gave him a strange look and went to shower.

If Rossi had thought that would stall Spencer from his determination to get himself shot, he was wrong. It didn’t really seem to bother the kid all that much. Rossi watched him carefully in the time after, and Spencer seemed… fine. It never really occurred to him until later that maybe Spencer had simply finally mastered lying to him.

And then training was over and they walked into the BAU side-by-side, Jason Gideon leading the way. The door swung open, Spencer looked around. “Here’s your team leader,” Gideon said brightly.

“Fuck me, look what the Spencer dragged in,” Emily said, leaning on the banister above with her wings gleaming and face gleeful. “Oh, this is _hilarious_.” By her side, unaware of her presence, Aaron stared at Spencer like he was an almost-forgotten memory. Which he probably was; after eight years, Rossi _seriously_ doubted that the man still remembered the face of a random boy.

“I’m not calling you boss,” Rossi warned her grumpily.

Beside him, Aaron had finally jumped into action, striding towards Spencer and holding out his hand. “Agent Hotchner,” he introduced himself, his face coolly professional. “Welcome to the team.” There was a hint of irritation in his voice, a stiffness that suggested he was completely unhappy with the younger man’s presence.

“I don’t… shake,” Spencer said reflectively, wincing at his awkwardness. And wincing again as he profiled the older man’s discomfort. Unlike Aaron, Spencer absolutely remembered him. “Sorry. I mean. Reid. I’m… Dr. Reid. Hi. Hello.”

He blushed.

In unison, Emily and Rossi sighed.

“Twenty bucks he gets shot the first week,” he said glumly.

“Nope,” she said with a snort. “Forty that Aaron kicks him out before that happens.”

Thankfully, they were both wrong.

 

* * *

 

Just when he was wondering how to come up with forty bucks without borrowing it from the probably very soon to be unemployed Spencer—as it turned out, their charges got on very much like a house on fire; with Spencer being the poor ramshackle house and Aaron the flames that bit unrepentantly at his heels—they had their first case.

Three weeks in, and it was becoming increasingly clear that ‘Hotch’ hadn’t wanted Spencer—or Reid, as Rossi was still trying to adjust to people calling him—as part of his team. Not that it was blatant. He was polite, professional, clipped. Just the same as he was with everyone. But Reid was a profiler, Rossi had gone to all the same training Reid had, and there was a notable disconnect between the way the Unit Chief treated his agents and the way he treated… well, Reid.

“You need to work on your gunmanship,” Hotch remarked blandly one day, watching Reid at the range. “That’s far below what I expect of my team.” Rossi never quite forgave him for that comment, since from then on Reid spent three hours at the damn range every morning and _still_ didn’t really improve.

“If you’re going to work on this team, you need to present a more professional front,” was the next comment, dark eyes ranging over Reid’s long hair and perpetually crooked tie. “That means speaking to people, Dr. Reid.”

_Dr. Reid._

“He does realize that I can _tell_ that he resents my addition to this team, right?” Reid grumbled in the bathroom, trying to fix his tie. Rossi sighed, stepping up and straightening it for him. “There’s ‘Morgan’ and there’s ‘Gideon’ and then there’s ‘Dr. Reid’. I’m not _stupid_ , despite what he thinks.”

“I don’t think he thinks you’re stupid,” Rossi soothed, recognising a hint of hurt pride in that tone. “Just… young. Vulnerable. Shit, kid, you _are_ young and vulnerable. That’s not a good feeling for a leader, sending you out all knock-kneed into the world. Like Bambi to the wolves.”

“I’m not Bambi,” Reid snapped. “And I can look after myself.” He flicked his hands dry and wrenched himself away, setting his tie into disarray again as he stormed out.

“Well now, that’s blatantly untrue,” Rossi called after him. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

Then the case came in. Two steps onto the crime scene and Reid’s hand snapped up to his mouth, his eyes locked on the sprawled body—apparent suicide in Georgia with Gideon’s business card in his pocket and a scrawled _call for help_ across the back—and eyes wide.

Hotch looked at him, a flicker of sympathy skidding across his handsome features. “If you’re going to be ill, do it out of sight of the LEOs,” he suggested gently, shifting around to block Reid from their view.

“I’m not…” Reid mumbled, and then lowered his hand. Hotch made a noise.

Rossi wasn’t looking at them anymore.

He walked past them, staring at the ground beyond the broken man. Staring at the _other_ body. Behind him, he heard Emily hiss. The angel was dead. He was very, very dead. Wings thrown outwards in a heap of ruffled feathers, eyes heedlessly empty, skin slack. And Rossi knew him.

He was from their flock.

“Hannibal,” Emily said, stepping up next to Rossi with her wings humped with shock. “How…”

But the gunshot wound in the angel’s forehead was enough of an answer to that.

“His…” Rossi looked at the dead human, the gun loose in his hand. “His… charge shot him. He killed him. _How? Why?_ ” Even as he reeled, Gideon was crouching by the body, tugging loose a single, brown barred feather from between the dead man’s palm and the bloodied gun.

“Rossi,” Emily said, her head cocked away. He thought, for a moment, that she was going to do a Reid and be sick from the sight. It wasn’t like either of them had ever been faced with a body of one of their own before… but she wasn’t looking at the body. She was looking back at their charges. His charge.

Looking at Reid and the blood he was wiping from his face.

“Demon,” Rossi said, and the people around them continued bustling around the extinguished life with no idea of what was among them. It could have waited for responders. Jumped from one to another. Slipped in among the law enforcement like smoke, neither of the angels could tell. Unless it was drawing magic, there was just no way they could tell. “It’s found us.”


	6. Falling

Despite Rossi keeping quiet about the demon, Reid could tell he was stressed about something. They hadn’t spent the boy’s formative years together without him picking up on at least a few of Rossi’s tells, and Rossi knew it was bothering him that he wasn’t sharing.

The case fizzled out, the demon going quiet again. Rossi had a horrible feeling that that was because the demon had what it needed. Proof that Reid was what he was, and proof that he was _where_ he was. And now the demon had a sure-fire way of summoning them to whatever trap it wished…

Or a simple Google search, which would bring it straight to their own city. They wouldn’t be hard to track down after that.

“You’re moulting,” Reid commented one day, walking out of the bedroom with a handful of scruffy feathers in one hand. “Are you going to tell me what’s happening?”

“You going to tell me what’s going on with you and Hotch?” Rossi shot back, and Reid flushed red and walked back out again. “Yeah, that’s what I thought…”

If things had been tense between them before, that was nothing compared to what they were following that case, following the next case, following the _next_ one. Hotch’s disapproval of Reid’s youth seemed to have given way to a grudging acceptance of his abilities and, as the year dragged on, they’d formed some kind of… something.

Rossi had no idea what the fuck it was, since the two of them seemed to keep a careful orbit of each other at all times. Reid was like the awkward puppy-dog Earth to Hotch’s scowling sun—constantly looking to him for a nod or a gesture of acceptance after every nervous query or supposition. Hotch, to his credit, automatically began supplying both. It was weird. They were weird. Rossi took to rolling his eyes at them.

They were checking into a hotel on their latest case—rogue sniper in Illinois—when Emily stepped up beside Hotch and murmured, “Take the room with Spencer.” Rossi turned to look at her as Hotch called out to Reid and jerked his head towards the shared room. Reid, after one plaintive glance at Morgan, followed. All of them were exhausted, worn down by the case’s grudging refusal to be solved, and Rossi just wanted to sleep.

“What are you up to?” he asked his friend, following their charges up the hall.

“Figured it’d be easier if we combine our assignments for a little while,” she commented, taking Hotch’s bed as the man quietly vanished into the shower. Reid, a casefile on his lap, ignored Rossi in favour of scribbling endless, frantic notes into the margins. “You sleep, I’ll watch. We’ll take turns. Your wings are looking a bit ragged.”

Like she could talk. Her wings weren’t looking much better, the usually glossy black dull and patchy in places. He nodded, aware that now they were confined in the room with Reid, the man could hear every word of their conversation. They lapsed into silence, Rossi making himself comfy on the armchair with his wings sprawled and legs thrown haphazardly out where Reid would trip if he tried to get to his go-bag during the night.

Hotch slipped out of the bathroom with a fog of steam drifting around him, his expression irritated and a towel slung around his waist. Reid glanced up, down, and then up again with his eyes widening very slightly.

Rossi snorted.

“Sweat pants got wet,” Hotch muttered, grabbing a spare pair from his bag and vanishing back into the bathroom. “Sorry.” The door clicked shut. Reid stared at the closed door, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard.

“Perve,” Rossi commented, closing his eyes and letting his head loll back. It was nice to know Reid _was_ still human; sometimes he wondered if the boy who’d once fallen in love under the sprinklers had been swallowed up by his great big brain and an intense fear of heartbreak. And, while he didn’t _miss_ Spencer engaging in all kinds of no doubt depraved sexual acts, he was slightly concerned that he had overnight gone from having an overly active and healthy sex life to complete abstinence with no sign of noticing. It was as though Ethan had emotionally neutered the boy on his way out of the door…

_Speaking of combining our assignments,_ Emily said suddenly, her mind-voice wicked. _Now **that’s** an idea…_

Rossi blinked himself awake, twitching his head around to look dolefully at her. _Oh, you’re not thinking we…_ he sent back, beginning to think _just_ that. _Aaron’s his **boss**. That is a goddamn shit awful idea and you know it._

_No, it’s not,_ she argued, smirking. _Aaron is just your boy’s type, we’ve known that for years. And I know for a fact that Aaron isn’t as straight-laced as he seems._

_Haley,_ said Rossi coolly.

Emily shrugged, her wings rustling with the movement. _They’re fighting more often than not,_ she said, her voice carefully devoid of emotion. Trying to pretend she didn’t care. _I give them six months. He brought up having a baby, she got a prescription for the pill. Hasn’t told him._

Rossi absorbed that. _That’s going to hurt him_ , he said finally with a wince. _They haven’t been married that long…_

_And?_ Her voice had slipped to callous now. _Two of us can guard them better than one. I like Haley. I’ve watched her grow up alongside him and now I’m watching them destroy each other. She’s cheated on him, he slept with a task force leader in New York, and he watches Spencer just as often as Spencer watches him. Wouldn’t have figured you for the morality police, Rossi. We do what we have to to keep them safe… and if that means putting pressure on the cracks in his marriage to drive him into Spencer’s arms, isn’t that worth his safety?_

_Not if it just ends in them both being broken,_ Rossi said firmly. Hotch moved out of the bathroom, speaking to Reid in a lowered voice before dimming the lights and crawling into bed. Rossi watched them, seeing Emily doing the same. _But…_

_But?_

_If it happens, it happens,_ he said wearily. It was a good idea. Two of them meant two extra eyes on Spencer… four extra eyes, if he included Aaron’s.

It was a damn good idea.

_Twenty bucks I can get them having dinner together by the end of the month,_ Emily said after a beat.

Reid was sneaking glances at the already sleeping Hotch over the top of the file in his lap. Rossi watched, and considered, biting at the inside of his cheek. _You’re on,_ he said finally, closing his eyes again. _But no blatant interfering. And leave Haley be._

Emily’s chuckle lulled him to sleep.

The woman was terrifying, she really was.

 

* * *

 

Dowd happened, and Rossi had lost about four centuries of his life watching Reid cringe under the barrel of the man’s rifle. But Hotch was a quick thinker, Reid wasn’t far behind, and something changed irrevocably between them when Reid’s bullet slammed home. It was a split second. Packing their go-bags later that night, Reid still wincing every time he had to bend over, and Hotch was watching him. The same unreadable expression that suddenly slipped as Reid’s hand came up reflectively to a spark of pain in his side. It became readable, familiar.

Rossi watched it switch to guilt, to worry, and for the faintest second, to something _wanting_. A glint of expression that hinted to unspoken desires: desire to step forward, brush his own hand against bruised skin, to reassure himself that the other man truly was okay under his layers of carefully chosen clothes. Desire for _more_.

_Huh,_ Rossi sent, and couldn’t hide his surprise. _Maybe you were right._

_Of course I was,_ said Emily smugly. And out loud, she said, “Don’t let him go straight home after the flight. If he’s truly hurt and hiding it, he’ll bolt.”

Hotch reclined his chin up slightly, the expression vanishing. “When we land, I need you to come into the office with me,” he said, ignoring Reid’s barely stifled groan. “There’ll be paperwork on your medical treatment that Strauss will be hounding us for.”

“Okay,” Reid agreed glumly, shoulders stooped. Hotch nodded, once, stiffly, and strode from the room.

_Game on,_ Emily said, and sauntered after them.

Two weeks later, Reid was buying coffee on his way to the office. Rossi slipped over. “Get Hotch one,” he suggested, seeing Reid’s eyebrow raise as he hesitated over his wallet. “Budgets are due soon. He’ll have pulled an all-nighter.” Reid nodded, barely, and ordered another. That earned them their first smile, and Reid was practically buzzing with delight all day.

“Cheat,” Emily complained, so he threw a pencil at her.

A hot day in Ohio and Rossi nudged a sprinkler on with his foot as Reid walked beside it. Soaking wet and with his white shirt _decidedly_ see through, Reid tried to wring it dry as Hotch rounded the corner of the house and stared at him. “It just came on,” Reid spluttered, shaking wet hair from his eyes and splaying his hands out to look down at his drenched front. This had the—depending on who’s opinion was asked—fortunate/unfortunate side-effect of making sure that _all_ of his clothes clung nicely to his body.

Hotch’s eyes did a quick sweep up and down, blinking quickly and turning away.

“Go back to the hotel and get changed,” he said, his voice far too sharp for the disdain he was attempting to show, and Rossi smirked as Emily groaned.

“Two points to me,” he whispered to her, and jogged, whistling, after his damply miserable charge.

Emily got the next one in. After doing a sweep of the house Reid and Hotch were picking through for evidence forensics might have missed, just to make sure there wasn’t anyone nasty hiding in there, she waited until Hotch had slipped into a closet to crouch and page through a box of journals, his focus intent on his job. Rossi flickered out to where Reid was, informing him that Hotch needed his expertise, and, as soon as Reid had stepped into the closet, Emily pushed him and shoved the door closed. Muffled yelps sounded from inside along with something that almost sounded like Hotch swearing, and Rossi collapsed into giggles that he _knew_ Reid could hear.

“We’ll let you out in five,” he called, Emily leaning on the door. “Have fun, kids!” Oh, he was _so_ getting the cold shoulder for this later. When the two men emerged, Hotch staring for a good two minutes at the lock of the door as though he could work out how it had unlocked itself just from sheer force of glaring, they were both pink-cheeked and flustered.

“Bit tight in there, was it?” Rossi goaded Reid, following him from the house. “Close quarters and all? Oh, come on, kid, you’re a little bit pleased.” Reid shot him a filthy look and said nothing.

“I think I should get about ten points for that,” Emily remarked after. “Hotch has been twitchy all afternoon. Almost _distracted_.”

“They haven’t had dinner yet,” Rossi pointed out. “And your deadline was up last week. Twenty bucks to me.”

“Oh well,” she said flippantly. “Mine is the long game.”

Two weeks later, Reid walked onto a train with a delusional man holding a weapon, and he did so without wearing his vest. Rossi was sure, for a heartbeat, that this was how it all ended. With Reid dead, Hotch helpless on the outside looking in, and Elle gone as well. Perhaps the whole damn train. But somehow, _somehow_ , without Rossi even managing to help worth a damn, Reid got them out.

“Let me do my job,” he’d muttered to Rossi before stepping onto that train, and Rossi had abided by that. Somehow. Aware the whole time that the man they faced was unhinged enough that any attempts to persuade him could go _terribly_ , terribly wrong.  But, Reid did his job. He did it well. And they walked away. The two angels practically wilted from the relief.

“Reid,” Hotch called, that night as Reid tiredly packed his desk to go home, his jacket over one arm. “Are you okay?” Emily and Rossi looked up at them, both pausing in the muted argument they were having over whether Rossi _should_ have stepped in sooner.

“I mean, it turned out about as well as we could expect,” Reid said with a thin smile. “I’m okay, Hotch. Really, I am.” There was a straight line to his back that agreed with this statement, a firm shape to his shoulders.

Hotch visibly noted both. And nodded. “I thought you would be,” he said with another rare smile. “Beyond taking your vest off. I _should_ write you up for that, you know.”

“Are you going to?” Reid asked, cocking his head sideways in the look he gave things he was really trying to figure out, seemingly unaware of how the move made him look somehow sharper and yet more innocent all at once. An alluring combination. And, to the angels’ mixed delight/disbelief, Hotch allowed himself to be allured.

“No,” he said, using the voice that Rossi knew was his _Aaron_ voice rather than the sharper _Hotch_ one. “But I would like to get something to eat before heading home… a celebration of seeing you again _alive_ , perhaps. If you would like.”

Reid blinked, stunned. “Uh, sure,” he said, stalling a glance at Rossi before it could look strange. “I’d… like that. Thanks, yeah.”

_I’m not paying up_ , Rossi said instantly, as soon as Emily turned her smug on. _Fuck you, it’s been over a month. And it’s probably friendly. Hotch sure thinks its friendly, or he wouldn’t be asking him at work. With his **wife** home waiting._

_Hotch doesn’t know shit about his own emotions,_ she sallied back brightly. _Man is more emotionally dense than the Red Sea. And besides, if it was friendly, why is he keeping the hand with his wedding ring in his pocket?_

That Rossi really couldn’t argue with.

 

* * *

 

The dinners became a thing. Once a week, like clockwork, the two men went out for a beer and a meal and talked about everything but what was absolutely fucking obvious.

After two months, Hotch admitted he felt like it was his fault his marriage was failing. Emily commented that it was the first time he’d even admitted it to himself. Spencer picked at his steak and said very little, but he bought the next round. They stayed out later than usual and stumbled to their respective homes twice as drunk as usual.

After four months, Reid told Hotch about his mom. That night, Rossi found him curled on the couch staring at the roof. He peered down at him, waiting until Reid acknowledged his existence before saying, “When are we going to talk about the fact that you’re in love with your boss?”

“We’re not and I’m not,” Reid replied quickly, rolling over to hide his face against the back of the couch and curling his knees up defensively. A position that wasn’t as comfortable now for the gangly thing as it had been when he was twelve.

“You never told Ethan about your mom,” Rossi pointed out, wondering if they’d made a mistake encouraging this. Reid didn’t answer and Rossi dropped the subject.

“I don’t feel like going out tonight,” Hotch admitted one week when Reid brushed his knuckles against his office door on their usual night. “I’m just… tired.”

“That’s okay,” Reid said, withdrawing quickly. “We can—”

Hotch was already reaching for his coat. “I still will,” he said hurriedly, “just… somewhere quiet perhaps.”

Reid paused, his mind ticking. Rossi watched his hand shift against his side, his eyes flicker to Hotch’s wedding band, his eyes dark. “I can cook,” he said finally, and he probably didn’t intend to make his voice go the octave it did, but even Emily shivered at the promise behind that. “I mean… if you… want.”

Hotch paused, his eyebrow rising to cover the way his body had stilled at the husky statement. “Now _that_ I’m going to need to see to believe,” he said finally, smiling through the exhaustion in his eyes. “I’ll buy the wine.”

Ten years of teaching Reid his way around a kitchen culminated in this moment; Reid easily making pasta sauce as Hotch wandered around his living room with his eyes hungrily roving over every piece of art or glossy book cover. Rossi hovered in the doorway between the two rooms, Emily by the window, and Reid continued chattering despite the barrier between them. They watched as Hotch paused by the couch, eyeing the folded blanket and pillow carefully, tucking that away into the place in his mind set aside for _Spencer Reid_. His hand trailed on the arm, fingers twitching the blanket corner, swallowing slightly. Wine glass in hand.

Reid reappeared. “Dinner’s ready,” he said. “I promise, you almost certainly won’t die.”

“Can you show me your work?” Hotch asked suddenly, when dinner was over and they were sitting opposite each other—Hotch on the sagging couch, Reid perched nervously on the edge of his armchair. “I know you’re working on another doctorate—I’d be very interested to see what you’ve compiled so far.”

“Of course,” Reid said, twitching his head jerkily. The folder was gathered, the two men sitting close together on the couch with it open between them and Reid eagerly explaining each wild leap of logic his brain had taken from point to point. Hotch nodded along, adding his own views where he could, until his wine glass was empty and his expression clearly more focused on the shift of Reid’s hands as he gestured from page to page.

Neither Rossi nor Emily made a sound. They watched as Hotch moved to illustrate a point by tapping on the page, and they watched as Reid did the same and their fingers tangled together. The moment tensed, paused, and instead of pulling his hand away, Hotch closed it over Reid’s and traced his fingers over the lines of tendons. Reid, silent and almost shaking, just stared.

“They say you can tell a lot about a person from their hands,” Hotch said suddenly, his voice thick with the wine they’d finished probably a little too fast just from sheer nerves. Reid said nothing. “How you hold your gun…” He traced the pads of his fingers around Reid’s trigger finger, right where the weapon would rest. “… how you hold a pen…” His eyes darted up, and Reid was staring still. “Your pulse is racing.”

“You know why,” Reid commented after a beat, and Emily hissed in surprise. It was a low voice, a bedroom voice, and it was _intensely_ forward. Rossi raised an eyebrow but said nothing, unwilling to interfere in whatever this was. “Pretending otherwise you’re insults both of our intelligences.”

“You’re attracted to me,” Hotch said bluntly, his eyes sharp despite the wine.

“We’re drunk,” Reid deflected, but he didn’t take his hand away. “And you’re married,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Barely,” Hotch snapped, wincing at his tone. “And… barely. Your feelings aren’t unrequited.”

Reid shivered, taking his hand back and dragging the folder more firmly over his lap, eyes downcast. “Not when we’re drinking, Aaron,” he said finally, and stood to shift away. A mixed blessing; it got him away from easy temptation, but the movement also highlighted just how tempted he already was, and when Hotch stood as well, his plight was mirrored. Whatever hope Reid had had of putting this night behind them vanished as soon as his eyes skimmed downwards and saw the broken line of Hotch’s pants, his eyes shuttering and breathing quickening. Dave shrugged helplessly when Reid glanced at him, as though for some kind of sign of advice or approval or _something._

Their phones rang, almost in unison.

“Work,” Hotch said, moving swiftly for it. “JJ, ah. Damn.”

“Damn,” Reid repeated, adjusting his trousers and going for his own phone. He pointedly ignored Rossi as he did so, his shoulders stiff. “Case?”

“Case,” Hotch confirmed, and as one they moved to gather their things and head for the door. The moment broke; Reid and Hotch again instead of Spencer and Aaron.

Emily looked at Rossi. “Well,” she said finally. “Well done us?”

“Oh, this is only going to end in tears,” Rossi said fatalistically, suddenly absolutely sure they’d made a mistake. Now he just had to figure if Spencer’s life was worth his heart. And what kind of angel he was if he regretted that it might be…

 

* * *

 

The wonderful thing about JJ was that she absolutely could not hear him yammering on in the backseat. Spencer, on the other hand, absolutely could.

“So, kid, plans on this whole ‘getting into the pants of a married man’?” Rossi asked cheerfully, tapping on the window. “Can I have the window down? This place is sticky. Where are we going? Why do you have such a gross job? Am I annoying yet? Are you regretting the thing with Hotch? You probably should be. But I approve. Sort of. Mostly. But you should probably still have some regrets just because, you know, married.”

“Can we turn the radio up?” Reid grumbled, slouching. “I have a headache and it’s _loud_.”

“I don’t think the radio is going to help your headache,” JJ said with a chuckle, tapping her fingers on the wheel. “God, this guy lives in the middle of nowhere. Why is Georgia so _empty?”_

Reid opened his mouth, probably to detail just why Georgia was so empty, but their headlights caught a gate up head. “Oh—there! JJ, it’s there. Pull in.” Rossi groaned. More interviews. They could be back at the precinct, with Emily, not talking to randoms who happened to call in a dog complaint, but no, here they were… sulking, he slunk out of the car after the two agents as they walked towards the porch.

“You’re going to have to figure something out,” he continued muttering. “Hotch is probably going to repress the shit out of the whole night.”

Reid stopped abruptly on the porch, his foot scuffing as he stumbled. Rossi almost crashed into the back of him, wheeling backwards with his wings out. “Spence, what…?” JJ said, turning back right as the door opened as their man stepped out.

Rossi blinked as Reid looked back up. There was blood on his face.

They looked at the man.

“Spencer, _run_ ,” Rossi said calmly, reaching for his grace and finding nothing. He couldn’t cast, not while a demon was there. He couldn’t do _shit_. “Now!”

“Uh, sorry, we’re with the FBI—” JJ began, right as the man bolted back into his house and slammed the door behind him. “What the heck?”

“It’s him!” Reid yelped through his splayed fingers, surging from the porch as another door banged on the opposite side of the house. “JJ, that’s our unsub!”

“Don’t chase him!” Rossi roared, but the idiots were already doing that. “Fuck!” He pelted after them, wings canted and body thrumming with panic. They’d already split up. They’d already fucking _split_ up, and Reid was heading for the cornfield. “This is a horror movie. We’ve just leapt into a fucking horror movie!” But he followed Reid, grabbing the boy’s arm and yanking him back. Reid whirled, eyes wide and gun in hand, finger off the trigger. Rossi winced. Probably not the best idea to grab the FBI agent with the live weapon. “It’s a _demon_ ,” he hissed, and Reid nodded shakily.

“I know,” he replied, eyes darting around. “And he’s _killing_ people, Rossi. I have to stop him—if we lose him now, we might not find him again!” There was pain in his eyes, the blood coating his mouth and nose a wet red. But he was also determined. Rossi swore and realized it was probably on him for raising a damn _hero_.

Gunfire. Three shots.

A scream.

“JJ!” cried Reid, dragging himself out of Rossi’s grip and moving towards the barn. “Rossi—go to her!” Rossi moved automatically, taking five long steps towards the barn and stopping as the distinctive sound of shotgun butt meeting head sounded. He turned reluctantly, already knowing what he was going to see.

Fuck.

Reid’s gun was on the ground. Reid was on the ground. Mouth dry and wings flared, Rossi stared helplessly as Reid held his hands up in a semblance of surrender, staring down the barrel of a gun _not_ held by Aaron Hotchner. The demon stared back, expression flickering wildly between human and monster.

“What are you _doing_ to me?” screamed Tobias Hankel, the same stuttering, panicked voice that had greeted them at the door. Then, it shifted. “ _You_ ,” snarled the demon, mouth twisting. “Aval is _very_ interested in _you_.”

Rossi scrabbled for the gun, his hands dipping through it helplessly. Placing himself between them wouldn’t help; all it would do was block Reid’s view of the man threatening him. His magic was shackled by the demon’s presence. The only thing giving them hope was that the _demon_ was just as shackled.

“Don’t panic,” Rossi said helplessly, and Reid looked at him. “We’re going to—”

The gun came down. _Crack_. Reid went with it. Rossi had no choice as his charge was dragged from the silent cornfield, his body limp and broken.

There was nothing he could do but follow.

 

* * *

 

Rossi had lived a long time. He’d seen atrocities. He’d been a part of those atrocities. He’d guarded a warmonger who’d organized the rape and pillage of seven small towns, including the murder of children. He’d stood aside and he’d deflected arrows, well aware that his actions would lead to the death of countless beings. Well aware that if he’d failed to act according to his job, even more would die. He’d guarded abusive husbands. Wives who’d poisoned their children, for good and for bad. He’d guarded a child who’d later grown up to become a despot.

And he’d cared. He’d hated the suffering. He’d hated the mixed moralities. He’d _despised_ how it twisted humans into pawns on some galactic chessboard where they all played a part.

But he’d never cared like this. Not like _this_.

Not like watching Spencer Reid being beaten, drugged, _hurt_. And there was nothing he could do but crouch by his side with his fingers threaded through his charge’s, repeating anything that he thought could offer him some hope.

“You’re stronger than he is,” he said, and squeezed tighter. Spencer just trembled back into the chair, eyes locked on the loping figure of the demon pacing in front, wood in his hands. “You’re going to survive this.”

“I’m here,” he repeated, over and over and over again and the wood fell on unprotected skin. Wincing with every _crack_ of bone.

“You’re not weak,” he said firmly, as the drugs dragged Spencer away once more. “Not even in the fucking slightest.”

Hankel never went far. For two agonising days, he stuck just close enough that Rossi couldn’t untie the rope holding his charge to the chair, couldn’t teleport to where Emily was, couldn’t do _shit_ beyond useless platitudes that he knew Spencer was beginning to block out. Not on purpose.

There was a blank-eyed haziness to Spencer’s eyes that was beginning to creep into the rest of him. A slackness to his limbs as he sagged in the chair, an emptiness to his very being. And Rossi did _nothing_ but stand there and watch the man he loved like a son slowly drift away into his own head.

“Hotch is coming,” Rossi tried desperately, when Spencer shuddered awake from the drugs and stared blankly at the wall. “He’s coming, Spence. He’s going to find you.”

Spencer didn’t even look at him.

“You can’t even hear me right now, can you?” Rossi whispered, reaching for his hand. His fingers brushed, touched, sunk through.

Incorporeal.

And Spencer didn’t look at him.

“What are you?” the demon inside Tobias Hankel asked, pacing around him. Rossi watched helplessly. “What _are_ you? Why won’t my magic work?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer croaked, his voice husky. Stinking of sweat and misery, twisted in pain from being tied in the same position for days. A camera blinked at them. Somewhere, the team was watching. Rossi knew Emily wouldn’t be able to see him, even if he shouted. _Useless_. “I’m Spencer Reid. I’m an FBI agent with the BAU. My team can help you, Tobias. We can—”

_Crack._

Spencer coughed gently to hide how much the blow had hurt him, folding himself into it and wheezing. Rossi closed his eyes. “What are you?” the demon asked again, colder this time. “Why does Aval want _you_ so much? How are you _special_?”

“I don’t know who that is,” Spencer sobbed, breaking. “Please. I don’t know who that is… my head, please… I’m sick. I need to go to the hospital, Tobias, _please._ ” The drugs, when Tobias took control and turned the camera off and administered them to him, were almost welcome after that. The only respite from the migraine that attacked relentlessly.

After the second day, Spencer stopped struggling against them.

On the third, Rossi stopped screaming at him for it.

And in the silent interludes when Spencer was too stoned to think, Rossi thought of all the ifs. If he’d been faster. If he’d stopped Spencer from running into that cornfield. If he’d prepared him properly for a demon instead of sheltering him from the concept. If another angel, one less emotionally compromised, was his guardian instead of Rossi. If Spencer was able to think, to use the brain he was renowned for through the agonising migraine the demon’s presence was forcing down on him… maybe he could have sent a message. Some kind of hint to where he was.

If if if.

“Don’t you dare die,” Rossi told Spencer firmly, feeling the demon’s presence ebb and flow nearby. Still too close. Spencer didn’t react. “Oi!” Desperate, he slid his hand into the front of Spencer’s filthy shirt, wrapping his fingers around the bloodied feather. Spencer twitched, opened his eyes. Looked groggily up at Rossi. “Stop dying!”

“You left,” Spencer said, his voice slurred and pupils uneven. “I needed you and you left me. You… just left.”

“No, no, no,” Rossi rambled, horror setting his wings on edge. “Spence, kid, no! I never left! I’ve been here this whole time, Spencer!”

But he’d already slipped away again.

“Don’t die,” Rossi breathed again. The most honest he’d ever been, probably, in this moment of failing. “Hey. Kid. Don’t die on me, I didn’t waste all that love on you to have you die here… please…” He closed his eyes against the failing, breathed sharp, and—

A flicker of something. The demon moved just out of range.

His magic rushed back.

He surged upright with a shout that Spencer jerked away from, eyes snapping open. “Move, help me,” Rossi said, struggling with the ties. They were tight, slipping through his fingers, and he yanked at them and looked around for something to cut with. “Come on, we’re going. _Now_.”

“I can’t walk,” Spencer managed, shaking his head slowly. “Rossi, you have to go to Aaron, he’ll be… Hankel’s house, he’d be there—I’m in a graveyard. Poaching, he killed a sheep… god, my _head_ …”

“Nope,” Rossi said, spotting a knife. “Not leaving you. We’re _both_ going.” The knife slipped through the rope, Spencer’s arms slumping uselessly down after days without proper circulation. He mewled in pain, ignoring Rossi’s manhandling as the angel crouched and slipped an arm under his knees, another behind his back. “You gotta hang to me, Spence. Come on. Just a little bit more.” The last time he’d done this, Spencer was _notably_ shorter. Skinnier. Lighter.

Cleaner.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, bracing his knees and _lifting_. Spencer lolled in his arms for a second before his arm snaked around Rossi’s neck and he grabbed—somewhat painfully—onto the joint where wing met shoulder-blade. “I’ve always got you.” This was going to hurt them both. Spencer was already injured, his body was under strain, Rossi didn’t know how far the cornfield was or…

He had to try.

“Sorry,” he whispered, pressing his mouth against oily hair, and then he teleported. The cornfield popped into existence around them and for a split second, just a second, Rossi breathed a sigh of relief because it had _worked_. Then, Spencer convulsed once, shock slamming through dulled senses. He convulsed, gasped, and Rossi fell to his knees to avoid dropping him.

The screaming started.

Under Rossi’s palm, Spencer arched horrifically as his spine stiffened. Emily appeared with a crack next to them, her eyes wild and wings thrown outwards so she was a furious shape against the night sky. Rossi’s gaze snapped upwards and he shrieked at her, “Help us!”

“Oh my god,” she said, staring at Spencer dying, and then she turned and ran back towards the house. Not teleporting, so they weren’t far. Help was coming.

“Help is coming,” Rossi managed, as Spencer jolted once, exhaled, and fell still. And Rossi felt it. Felt the kick-crack of the bond between them splintering. Felt him _die_. “Oh god. Oh god, no, Spencer, no no no…” Feet thumped on the damp ground, the thick scent of wet soil and broken cornstalks permeating this endless moment hovering between life and death; this moment that was the culmination of something Rossi hadn’t even realized he’d come to love.

Spencer died, and Rossi did nothing but hold him as he did so.

“Spencer!” roared someone, anyone, Rossi barely managed to crawl back out of the way as Hotch hurtled up, his eyes huge and stunned. Dropping to his knees, his gun hitting the ground. Hands running over a still chest, fingers fumbling against his narrow throat. Feeling for the life that wasn’t there. “Help! Over here—agent down!”

Rossi watched. Blankly. Watched as Hotch pressed his hands against his charge’s sternum and thrust down. Once, twice. Listened to the wheeze of one man breathing; listened to the pop of ribs giving way.

This was it. He’d failed.

A hand touched his arm, wrapped around him. A wing. Emily curled around his side and hugged him close. “Don’t look,” she murmured. “Oh, Rossi… you did what you could…”

_One, two, three…_ Hotch wasn’t giving up. More feet. More people. Crying, probably.

Rossi shuddered and realized he was too.

“Move to his mouth,” someone was instructing. Gideon. Rossi shook himself focused and watched numbly as the man moved to take over. “Go, Aaron, now.” They swapped. Two breaths from Hotch and Spencer’s chest shifted in a parody of life before Gideon took over compressions. And Hotch curled over the man, his shoulders bowed and hands shaking where he was tilting Spencer’s airways clear.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

Rossi finally turned away.

A flicker. A gasp. A grasping choking sound, and he swung back around unevenly to see Spencer’s hand flex by his side in a feeble attempt to reach for anything. Hotch caught it, clung on grimly, Gideon collapsing back.

“It’s okay,” Hotch said, his voice calm once more, like he hadn’t been shaken at all by what had just happened. “Spencer—we’ve got you. Help is coming.”

“He said you would,” Spencer managed, eyes rolling, and then he passed out again.

Alive. He was alive.

Rossi gasped and folded down into himself with relief, Emily catching him. And they lay like that, wings tangled, until the medics arrived and carried Spencer away. Hotch at his side and the angels following behind, only too aware all of a sudden how helpless they truly were.

 

* * *

 

“I dreamed you called me Spencer,” Spencer said sluggishly, eyes fighting the painkillers that were dragging him down. Hotch twitched upright, his face sunken with exhaustion from the merry-go-round of Spencer waking up, mumbling something incoherent, slipping away.

“I did,” Hotch said patiently. Machines beeped around them. Rossi inched closer, desperate to see _something_ familiar in those heedless hazel eyes. “How are you feeling?” The same question he’d asked five times over now. And would probably ask another five times, his voice carefully co-worker-concerned but his fingers betraying him by tracing the bandage wrapped around the other man’s arm.

Spencer looked at Rossi, smiling oddly. “Don’t leave,” he slurred, eyes flickering shut. “Stay with me… can’t do it without you… love you…”

Hotch looked up, his eyes skimming the room. “There’s no one there, Spencer,” he said carefully, but the man was already asleep again. “There’s just me.” But the room settled back into quiet humming, the soft squeak of the balloons Garcia had left bumping together, and Spencer’s weary breathing. Hotch settled back down, closing his eyes again with his left hand still curled territorially over Spencer’s arm, like he was reassuring himself that the man wouldn’t creep away while he snatched some sleep. Rossi slunk back, ignoring Emily’s quiet query as to his wellbeing. His eyes were on that hand. What was missing.

“When did he take his wedding ring off?” he asked Emily, who shrugged.

“Probably about the time he realized he’s in love with someone else,” she replied, looking away.

“And when was that?”

Her dark gaze skipped back, cutting to the man waiting unwearyingly by the still hospital bed. “I’ve never seen him so scared,” was all she’d say, and that was the end of that conversation.

 

* * *

 

“Aval is a demon,” Reid said plainly, setting his crutches aside and watching Rossi carefully from across his kitchen table. Every surface in the apartment was liberally covered in ‘get-well-soon’ baskets and balloons and flowers, the air heavily perfumed. Reid didn’t seem to notice. “And you’ve been hiding this from me.”

“I didn’t know his name,” Rossi said, hunching his shoulders and wings against the heavy weight of exhaustion that seemed to be permanently drawing him down since those three long nights in the graveyard. “I knew he was turning his attention slowly towards us… towards you. I thought perhaps I could discover a way to hide you before the information became pertinent.”

“Except now other demons know about me,” Reid added. Rossi looked at him. His eyes were hollow, ringed in a raccoon-black of illness and fatigue, his skin grey and cheeks sunken under the scruff. He wasn’t answering the door or his cell, the answering machine blinking a steady red light for the past three weeks of his home recuperation. Or, as Rossi more accurately termed it, home stagnation. “And what else? What else aren’t you telling me? Why _me?_ ”

Rossi shrugged, seeing Reid fold over onto the table, his fingers knuckling into his eyes. Seeing his gaze skip towards the hall leading to the bathroom, the tremor on his skin. Like Rossi didn’t know what he was doing in there. Like he couldn’t _see_ it. “Because you’re special, Spence,” he tried, knowing it was a wasted effort. Kid would never believe he was anything, not sunk this deep into depression. “You can see things others can’t… your mind…”

“Didn’t do me much good with Hankel,” Reid replied coldly. Hankel’s body had been found three days after Rossi had taken Reid to the cornfield. No one knew—so far as they knew—why he’d released Reid and then killed himself. Rossi knew.

Penance for losing the man Aval wanted more than anything.

Reid stood, ignoring the crutches and hobbling on barely healed feet down the hall, using the walls to steady himself. “If it’s coming here, we can try to trap it,” he called back with a dark backwards glance. “I trapped you once. Demons are your counter, right?”

“Right,” Rossi said softly, and waited for him to return. Stoned when he did, sprawling on the couch and ignoring his ringing cell. Rossi padded down beside him and sat on the floor, chin on his knee and wings ruffled. Fingers curled through his feathers, straightening them. “What are you doing?”

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re even real or if I’ve been mad all along,” Reid mumbled, splaying his hand through Rossi’s wing. “But then I realize how much I love you and it seems impossible that you’re a delusion. Can you love something that isn’t real?”

“Are you asking about me, or Hotch?” Rossi asked, cocking his head. It hurt to see him high, so he focused on a point just beyond those pinpoint pupils. Maybe the drugs were better than the nightmares, maybe the nightmares were better than that night… maybe none of it was better than what it could have been, if Rossi had done his fucking _job_.

“Both,” Reid admitted. “Neither. Maybe. He hasn’t called. I’m ruining him. Ruining Haley, ruining me, ruining the team… and you. Ruining you.”

“Bit arrogant to think you can ruin God’s Grace,” Rossi jibed gently. “Call him. Ask for help. Stop _this_.”

Reid studied him blearily, finally letting go of Rossi’s wing to trace his own arm and the track-marks marring it. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m… selfish. And I can’t watch him stop caring for me when he realizes what I am. Why do you let me do this? Why don’t you stop me?”

For that, Rossi didn’t have an answer. He waited for the man to fall asleep, his haggard face smoothing into something that almost resembled the boy he’d used to be, under the week-old beard and the sharp lines. “I’m failing you,” he murmured, leaning his head against his charge’s stomach. “I’m sorry.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m pretty sure you’re on some kind of watch-list now,” Rossi commented, helping brace another square of mirror against the freshly coated walls. They glittered, the air odd tasting with the sheer amount of silver nitrate Reid had mixed into the paint. Three walls and the ceiling done, Rossi watched as an infinite amount of himself turned slowly to check for gaps or cracks in their work. “This number of mirrors _must_ look suspicious to someone.”

“My bank account for sure,” Reid said glumly, slotting the mirror into place and testing it to be sure the glue had caught. The thinner the mirror, the higher it was, as Reid put all his engineering capabilities into making sure the ceiling didn’t tip in on them. “This is going to get me institutionalised for sure if someone finds it, by the way.”

Being in there was making Rossi’s wings itch. He shrugged, slinking out for a breath of non-silvered air, finding Spencer’s cell still resolutely unanswered on the kitchen cupboard. Flat now. It took some doing, but Rossi eventually dug up the charger and plugged it in, waiting patiently for the _boop_ as the battery charged enough to switch it on.

_Thwop_.

“The kid _is_ alive, right?” Emily asked, stepping up to look down at the cell with him. “Because we’re starting to doubt.”

“Yeah,” Rossi replied, listening for screaming or smashing or other sounds of trauma and hearing nothing. “We’re alright, girlie. How’s Aaron?” Emily was quiet. Rossi looked at her, lowering the phone as it began to buzz unrepentantly in his hand. “Em?”

“Odd,” she said finally, tucking her wings forward. “He’s… odd. Spending all his time at work and when he’s not, him and Haley are alternating between fighting or…” She paused and smirked. “Well.”

“Huh.” Rossi looked at the cell, tapping open the inbox. Fuck privacy, kid had given that up when he started shooting his problems up instead of dealing with them. Three weeks of texts from Morgan, JJ, Garcia, more Morgan…

_Aaron, Aaron, Aaron._

“Huh,” he said again, and tapped those open. They’d clearly started rolling in after Reid had given up on human contact and let his cell die.

**From Aaron: _How are you? I’m concerned. The team haven’t heard from you._**

**From Aaron: _We’re all concerned. You’re not answering your phone?_**

**From Aaron: _Please answer. We need to talk. I thought I’d lost you that night, Spencer. I can’t lose you now that we’ve got you back._**

On and on they went, for the past week. Rossi opened one from the night before, wincing at the raw anger in the blocky type. **From Aaron: _you cant just do this spencer, you cant make us care and shut us out. Im drunk, im pissed, im tired and stressed and youre NOT helping._**

“Yup,” Emily said, inching back. “Got absolutely hammered.” She ran her own hand through her hair, tucking it back to reveal a complexion that looked just about as ghastly as Reid’s did. “It’s exhausting keeping up with his mood-swings, honestly. And they’re so fucking _subtle_. I can’t even tell he’s _having_ mood-swings half the time, until he rips into Morgan for a single typo in a report or tells Garcia she needs to tone her dress back. Where’s Reid now?”

Rossi didn’t really want to show her the mirror room. She didn’t look like she could take that stress onto her skinny shoulders, not on top of everything else. But a single glance down the hall saw the spare room door closed and locked, the key missing.

The bathroom door was also closed.

“Damn,” he hissed, striding down the hall and swinging it open. If Emily followed, he took no notice.

The room was empty. He looked around, wincing when he saw the wooden box on the bath, knowing what it contained. He picked it up, carrying it with him. Slinking back out, he walked into the bedroom to find Emily looking down at Reid napping on the bed. He opened his eyes when he heard Rossi entered, rolling over to ignore him.

“He’s high,” Emily stated bluntly.

“Yup,” Rossi said, hefting the cell in his hand. Reid twitched at the sound of his voice but otherwise didn’t react. The cell beeped low battery accusingly, and Emily took it, tapping away before handing it back.

He looked down at it.

“There,” she said. “I meddled. God knows, they both fucking need it.”

**To Aaron: _I messed up_**

_That’s one way to do it,_ he told her, putting the box and the cell down next to Reid’s motionless side, the contents clinking. It buzzed again as he straightened.

**From Aaron: _I’m on my way. Don’t do anything stupid. Do you need medical care?_**

Reid didn’t twitch, so Rossi sent back _no_ , unlatched the front door, and the angels quietly waited.

****

* * *

****

A scuff of a footstep. The barest intake of breath.

Emily and Rossi looked up from their silent posts to see Hotch standing in the doorway, his eyes grim. Gaze skidding around the room to the man lying immobile on the bed, the box of sin beside him. The crutches lay scattered on the ground between them, forming an X that Hotch stepped over as he made his weary way to the bed and brushed his palm against Reid’s shoulder. Reid made a noise, a soft sort of _hm_ , and Hotch turned his attention to the box. Flicked it open with a clink of bottles and the soft whisper of hinges, his shoulders slumping.

He moved it carefully, two hands cupped below it as though it was dangerous, and slid it onto the bedside table before lowering himself to perch on the bed beside Spencer. And he let his hand drift back, tracing Spencer’s arm, fingers to the point where a pulse flickered duly on, patterning their way up the skin until they found the punctured line where the needles had nipped home again and again and again.

Rossi studied Hotch curiously. There was something different about him. Maybe it was the crooked twist to his shirt or the way his hair sat flat and unbrushed. A weary scruff to his chin. Some sign of undoing in the lines around his mouth and the dullness to his eyes.

There was something familiar in that gaze.

“How much did you take?” Hotch rumbled suddenly, his voice low and shocking in the forced quiet of that muffled room.

“Not much,” Reid replied, his clear voice betraying his sobriety. “Not… as much as you’re thinking. Just enough to make it… less.”

“Self-medication is a slippery slope,” Hotch replied, but he didn’t look at Reid as he said it. Looked away, and Rossi noted bloodshot eyes, a reddened flush to his cheek. Sober now, perhaps, but he hadn’t been for long.

“Hypocrite,” Reid muttered. Still sharp, even withdrawing. He shivered under Hotch’s hand, rolling and glancing to the wooden box. “Go away. Why are you here?”

“Stopping you from doing that,” Hotch said simply, twisting his body so he was between Reid and the box and nudging his shoes off with his toes. Reid inhaled along with Rossi as Hotch carefully edged onto the bed, lying flat with his side flush to Reid’s. They lay, for a moment, stiffly regarding each other. Then Hotch reached up, the fingers that had been exploring the track-marks now curling around Reid’s chin, easing it back as he pressed forward. The kiss was long and slow and painful, both men relaxing into it with a needy wanting that spoke of hearts broken and souls that screamed with their shared loneliness.

“What do you need?” Hotch breathed when the kiss broke. The angels were silent, watchful. Reid didn’t even glance in their direction. “Right now.”

“That,” Reid said bluntly, and looked to the box. “More of that. Just… don’t offer me anything from _pity_ , Aaron. That… the idea is repulsive.” But his fingers held to the front of Aaron’s shirt and clutched tight to the cotton.

“What if I need something just as badly?” Hotch asked, and kissed him again. This kiss didn’t break, Reid rolling back and bringing Hotch with him, his hand rucking through the other man’s hair and leaving it up in uneven spikes. “For today. So I don’t have to look at you and see _this_.”

“Okay,” Reid said, arching with a stifled moan. “Okay.”

Rossi caught Emily’s arm, tugging her to the door. _I don’t really want to watch my kid enthusiastically sinning with a married man,_ he quipped, feeling a little like he was throwing Reid to the wolves. Or possibly Hotch. Emily came, reluctantly, her mouth turned in a wry smile.

_Prude,_ she responded, and tugged the door shut behind her.

They curled up together in the living room but the men didn’t emerge, and eventually Rossi fell asleep watching the setting sun cast patterns through the curtains on her black feathers. He thought, as he drifted off, how very close to ethereal she looked in that moment. Fingers tracing the curve of her wing, his head on her chest, he closed his eyes and wondered how to tell her.

_I know,_ she whispered, her voice distant. _I feel very much the same._


	7. Failing

“Yeah, we got a tip saying you’d had one like this recently,” the cop was saying, frowning down at the body they’d been called to. The team ranged around it, their expressions a mix of curious and intent. Reid hobbled around, still limping slightly, his mouth moving as he rambled through something privately. Emily and Rossi looked to the second body that no one had noticed, both silently horrified. The angel had died on her knees, slumping grossly over with her wings patterned with red splashback from the wound in her chest and back. Despite none of the humans noting her presence, they skirted her body unconsciously, stepping over those tumbled wings.

It was three blocks from Spencer’s apartment.

“I hope you have a plan,” Emily said softly, pressing close behind Hotch, her hands knuckled tight, “because I think this is a message as plain as day.” Rossi agreed. There was really only one message here.

_End game._

* * *

“We shouldn’t do that again,” Reid had said to Hotch as the two men had dressed after their impromptu tryst. “We’re both lonely, in pain… our defences were down. You’re still married.”

“I’m leaving her,” Hotch had replied sharply, fingers tracing a purpled mark on the skin of his collarbone. Then he’d paused, shaking his head groggily as though trying to remember something he’d forgotten. “Just… you’re right.” Rossi had watched him carefully. “Yes. This is… unprofessional and alarming. We should… refrain.”

It didn’t stop them.

Reid would pace his apartment, winding himself tighter and tighter until Rossi could almost feel him about to snap like a coiled spring. He knew that when Spencer did release that energy, it would be explosive and devastating.

“Call Hotch,” he’d eventually say, every time, and Reid would. Hotch would come. He never said no. And, inevitably, they’d end up in bed together. Or on the floor. The couch. One memorable time on the kitchen counter, which Rossi hadn’t yet stopped complaining about.

“For a man with so much self-control, he’s showing remarkably little,” Rossi whined to Emily as they sulked in the living room together.

Emily just frowned.

“I hope you enjoy being the other woman,” Rossi told Reid one afternoon, as the man delved busily into as many books on demons as they’d been able to find. “He hasn’t filed for divorce yet. Something is holding him back.”

“Shut up,” Reid said, flipping through the pages. “I know, Rossi, I know. I’m… dealing with it.”

“I bet Haley’s dealing with it too,” Rossi muttered. Reid shot him a filthy look. “Just saying. Actions have consequences, and you’re both acting out of character. You’re being cold and Hotch… selfish…”

“Would you prefer the drugs?” Reid snapped in reply. He’d been clean since that night. It was a nice change, but _still_.

“The man you’re falling in love with isn’t a twelve-step program,” Rossi retorted, and Reid went pale. When Hotch came over two days later, Reid kept him at arm’s length. For a little while. They ended up in bed, eventually but, judging from the stony looks on both of their faces when they emerged, it hadn’t gone well.

Another angel died, this time twenty minutes from Hotch’s house. Rossi began to feel like a trap was closing in on them. He stopped telling Reid to think about what he was doing because at least if they were fucking, they were together. And when they were together, the angels could _sleep._ It was the only time they could sleep, taking it in turns to stand watch on their charges.

A case went bad at work. Reid had a gun pulled on him and ended up being pistol-whipped across the face. Would have been shot, but Rossi brought a bookcase down on top of the man and Reid cuffed him before he’d regained his equilibrium.

Afterwards, Hotch had ripped Reid a new one and then pinned him against his desk and kissed him furiously. Panting, Reid pulled away, clearly aroused and eyes huge with shock. “What the fuck, Aaron?” he breathed, head snapping around to stare at the accusing door. Emily and Rossi stared, mouths gaping. “At _work_?”

“I don’t know why I did that,” Hotch said blankly, wiping his mouth and reeling back. “I… lost my head. I just… I can’t _focus_ when you’re around.”

Reid gave him a queer look and walked out.

“Okay, now I’m weirded out,” Rossi said to Emily as he moved to follow Reid.

“Leave it,” she replied, her expression a mystery. “I’ll… I’ll figure it out. I think he’s just freaking out about Haley.” Her eyes said there was more to the story, but he’d never gotten anywhere with her by pushing, so he left.

He’d regret that later.

 

* * *

 

“No adultering tonight?” Rossi asked his charge, coming out to find Reid pacing in the living room. “Do I finally get a night of peaceful reading instead of humming to cover the delightful noises you two make when you’re deep—”

“I want to go to Aaron’s,” Reid blurted out, grabbing his keys and striding to the door, before whirling and pacing back. “But…”

Rossi blinked. “His _wife_ is there,” he pointed out, stretching his wings out and refolding them more comfily into place. “Or are we going to make this a party of three? Interesting turn of events…”

Reid glared at him. “Not helping,” he snapped, running his fingers through his hair and leaving at least four wild cowlicks sticking up in every direction. “Something is wrong. He _kissed_ me at _work_. In front of people, essentially! What if someone saw? That’s his career _done_. Mine, too. Why would he do that?”

“Okay.” Rossi switched to soothing mode, realizing snark probably wasn’t going to help right now. “We’ll go around there, see if he’s okay. No nookies in the backseat while his wife cooks a meatloaf though, okay? My virgin eyes can only take _so_ much.”

They drove in a fixed kind of silence. Devoid of chatter, despite Rossi having plenty to say, but with the radio cranked to cover anything he might _try_ to say. Reid kept his fingers white-knuckled around the steering wheel, his face grim, and Rossi fiddled with the dials and ignored the occasional glare he got when he stumbled across a jazz channel.

When they pulled up outside the modest house Hotch shared with his wife, the front yard dark and quiet, Reid did nothing but park the car and let the engine idle, clearly having second thoughts. “She’s not going to look at you and immediately know that you’re the man her husband has been buggering at every chance he’s had,” Rossi tried, probably a little insensitively, but fuck it, he was _tired._ Tired and cranky and old, and all of those things combined made him a tetchy. Reid twitched. “Or the man who’s been buggering her husband, I really don’t want to know the logistics—”

“ _Rossi_ ,” Reid snapped, letting his head thump against the steering wheel with an audible huff. His shoulders slumped, chest deflating. “I’m just… scared.”

Rossi didn’t ask about what. There was plenty to be scared of; he didn’t need an itemized list.

“Come on then,” he said, reaching across to flick the ignition to _off_. “Let’s go.”

A hand snapped up and caught his, Reid jerking upright and giving him an intense kind of look. “Wait,” he said, taking another breath. It fogged white in the cool air, his fingers thrumming against Rossi’s arm. Wired. “Can you… stay here? Please? I just… Haley’s there and it’s her home and his home and you’ve… you’ve seen me at my worst. You… you don’t need to see this.” It was a shaky, miserable sentence, and it broke Rossi’s heart a little to hear it.

“I’ll stay,” he agreed quietly, settling back into the seat. Emily was inside, he could feel her nearby. And he seriously doubted even _Reid_ could get into trouble on the short walk between here and the front door. “But I get to keep the radio on.” Reid smiled tightly, turned the radio back on, and vanished from the car in a gust of cold air and rustling clothes. Rossi settled back, closed his eyes, and hummed along to some song yapping about binge drinking.

The door yanked back open suddenly, barely five minutes in, and Rossi jolted up as Reid slid back into the seat. His face in the dark of the car, as he slammed the door shut and hunkered down into the seat, was a ghastly white and pink with cold on his cheeks and nose. His hands trembled on the keys as he almost snapped them in his hurry to turn them.

“Woah, where’s the fire?” Rossi asked.

“Nothing, just—” Reid coughed, rubbed his sleeve over his cold face, and shook his head. “Aaron was asleep. Let’s go. We’ll come back.” They rode back in silence again, but this time not even the radio cheered them. If Rossi tried to start a conversation, he got clipped, short answers. As soon as they got home, Reid vanished to his room.

Rossi tried to follow.

“Just give me space,” Reid snapped, turning on him as he struggled out of his shirt and hurled it angrily into the laundry basket by the closet. “You’ve been sticking so close to me lately I’m surprised you haven’t crawled into bed with me! Fuck, Rossi, seriously—I need space!”

“Not right now you don’t,” Rossi retorted, folding his arms. His feather bumped on Reid’s chest, reminding him of his obligations. “You’re acting weird. Why are you acting weird?”

Reid huffed, undoing his belt and balling that in after the shirt. “Well, my boyfriend is married and currently sleeping with his wife, and I’m tired and stressed and _horny_ and going to deal with that,” he spat. “If you want to watch, be my guest, otherwise _get out._ ”

Rossi, prudently, decided to leave. He’d read in the living room until his kid had sulked himself to sleep, and then he’d… do something. “This is why I hate guarding children,” he muttered, making himself comfortable on the couch.

 

* * *

 

Hands grabbed his shirt, shaking him roughly awake.

“Gah!” Rossi spluttered, opening his eyes to find Reid hovering inches from his face. “Ahh!”

Reid jumped back, standing shivering next to the couch. Rossi staggered up, heart thudding. “Something’s wrong,” Reid yammered, his eyes huge and glassy in the broken light of the moon through the curtains. “Aaron just texted me—something is wrong at his house and I can’t get there in time and you can and something is happening and I need you to please—”

“Okay, okay,” Rossi soothed, holding his hands up and resettling his wings properly. “I’m going. Just, stay here, don’t move, and I’ll be back before you can sneeze, alright? I’m sure it’s nothing.” He said that, but there was a sick, clawing feeling in his gut that it _wasn’t_ nothing, that this was the night he’d been waiting for since the moment, years ago, that Spencer had collapsed by the duck-pond. Maybe this was the moment he’d teleport to Emily and find her—

No. They’d be fine.

“Stay put,” he ordered again, waiting for Reid’s nod before teleporting— _thwop_ —to Hotch’s front yard. He paced the yard, looking inside cautiously. The whole place seemed… quiet. Peaceful. When he slipped in like a ghost, the front door unlocking under his hand and the security system not even registering his presence, the house remained silent. He checked the living room—there was a makeshift bed on the couch that he winced it—and kitchen—empty—the dining room—the same—and finally made his way to the bedrooms. All empty, the beds neatly made. “Hmm,” he said, and paced into the study on a whim. _Emily?_ he called, to no reply. Not surprising. Maybe they’d gone out… he should teleport to her. To Reid first, just so the kid didn’t freak out and come racing out into the night, and then he’d go to her.

The gun safe unlocked under his hand, the weapon inside untouched. Rossi relaxed and teleported back. There’d be a reasonable explanation. Maybe Reid had read the text wrong— _thwop_ —maybe—

He blinked. The apartment was empty.

“God-shitting _damnit_ ,” he roared, bolting to the bedroom. Gun-safe open, his service revolver gone. Cell on the bed. Rossi snarled in anger and turned again. _Why_ would he have left? What could he have _possibly_ needed to do—

His eyes fell on the open top of the laundry basket, a terrible suspicion settling down upon him.

No.

He wouldn’t…

Rossi stepped forward in a daze, fingers skimming the wrinkled folds of the shirt Reid had thrown in there furiously before. Unfolding it with shaking hands. Studying the sleeve, the rust brown patterns decorating it. Hidden from him by the coat the man had been wearing.

Blood.

“Oh, you _shit_ ,” Rossi breathed. Hotch couldn’t be possessed. His connection to Emily stopped that. No, _Hotch_ couldn’t be possessed.

But Haley could be.

A whirl of panic and Rossi teleported once more, already cussing Reid out as he went. Stepping out next to where the feather around Reid’s neck was—should have been—he snarled, “Why the _fuck_ didn’t you—” and realized he was staring at himself. Multiple himselves, stretching on infinitely, all with the same slack-jawed expression of shock and betrayal. He was still in the apartment.

In the glass room.

He was _trapped_.

He looked down, head thudding dully, and shifted his foot to find two feathers underneath. Both his. One on a gold chain—Reid’s. The one he’d given him as a child, its surface unmarred by age. The other on a white-gold chain, set beautifully with a whorl of gold. Angelically made.

Emily’s.

“You bastards,” Rossi breathed, and tried the door. Locked. He sunk down, wings curled over his shoulder and body numb. “You _bastards_. Why…? I would have _helped_ you…”

But he knew why. He’d told Reid himself.

_I’ll do anything to keep you safe. You come first. Absolutely._

_Anything._

A demon couldn’t possess Aaron, but it _could_ influence him. A festering, whispering voice that could curl into his heart and his mind and change the course of his actions. Take his intentions and twist them. Take his love and use it as a knife. Take his honour and use it to pull the trigger. Just the same as they could, but crueller, more seductively. To hurt instead of help. Subtle and damning; they hadn’t noticed in time to stop it, and it had been so fucking _obvious_.

Rossi huddled with his wings furled tight, and he waited. Reid had picked Aaron. And there was nothing else Rossi could do, but wait for the door to open… and to hope that that choice wasn’t catastrophic.

 

* * *

 

He lost hours to the empty nothingness of his mirrored prison, sprawled on his back and staring into a sky decorated with an endless reflection of flared wings. No one came for him. No one opened the door. He didn’t think about what they were doing. He didn’t think about Emily betraying him by imprisoning him away from his charge. He didn’t think about Spencer choosing Aaron’s safety over his own life. He didn’t think of Aaron, who knew nothing of what was coming and was still being hauled helplessly out into the tide of events. He didn’t think of anything, really, except that he was tired. Tired of this. Tired of everything. Tired and scared but mostly just _done_.

And then, the door opened.

Rossi didn’t react at first to the creak of the hinges, just closed his eyes. Couldn’t bear to look at whoever had just shamefully crept into his cell. He suspected Emily, hearing the shift of feathers.  Knowing she was here brought a bitter kind of anger.

“Glad you came to your senses you fucking idiots—” he snapped, the bitterness breaking through and leaving a ripping kind of pain in his chest as he sat up and looked at the door’s reflection on the wall across. At the angel standing there.

“Sikarbaal.”

At the angel that wasn’t Emily.

Rossi turned. The bitterness faded. The exhaustion vanished in a burst of white-hot _terror._ He shuddered with it as he stumbled upright and faced Batnoam. White wings barely open, Batnoam’s face was…

It wasn’t his usual blank distaste. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t disappointment.

It was sadness. Just… sadness.

And Rossi swallowed and folded his wings as tight as they could go and that still wasn’t enough to stop his heart from breaking. “He’s dead. He’s dead, isn’t he. Spe… Spencer is dead?”

Batnoam held out his hand, his sensible white shoes tapping against the edge of the glass. His pale hand hovered in the air between them. White robes still floaty, even down here. Even on Earth, this shit-hole of a fucking place full of dirt and filth and sin, he was still… floaty. A reminder of home. “Come with me,” he said, so Rossi gripped that offered hand and let himself be taken.

He didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to know.

But he let go of Batnoam’s hand in an echoing warehouse and walked alone into the gloom. Following the line of the other angel’s sad gaze. He braced. Braced to see those hazel eyes empty. Braced to crouch and gather his boy into his arms one last time. His brave, _stupid_ , clever boy who faced the world and thought he could fix it. Who took no fucking care for his own safety because of course, _of course_ , everyone one else was worth so much more than he was. Because he just couldn’t understand that he was…

Loved.

Rossi stepped through with his eyes shut, recalling vividly a sleepy gaze and a mumbled, _thanks, Dad_ , and then he opened them and looked at the body. The sprawled, shattered body with nothing left in it but the barest memories left behind. He swallowed once.

Swallowed again.

Breathed in and it burned. Breathed out and it tore.

“Oh,” he said, and slipped his hand into his pocket where a black feather was set into a white-gold chain. A twin to the one drifting gently in an eddy of air across the warehouse, caught in the breeze and tossed about uncaringly as though shed by one who couldn’t wait to fly.

Spencer looked up at him, his face smeared with blood and tears. “He was aiming for me,” he choked, his voice thick and snotty, his chest hitching. “Aaron was aiming for _me_.”

Rossi nodded distantly, walking over to him and sitting down next to them. Tracing his fingers gently over the quiet line of Emily’s forever silenced wings. She looked back at him, dark eyes empty. Staring. Always staring, now. He could see where the bullet had made a mess of her pretty face, and reached with a gentle hand to tilt that accusing gaze away, hiding the wound.

“Rossi,” someone was saying, a hand touching his arm. Her feathers were crooked. Blood on them. Blood and matter and he frowned again and wiped them as clean as he could. She hated having messy feathers. “Rossi, _please_. Look at me.”

Feathers neatened now, he started on her hair. What he could of her hair. What hadn’t been… hit.

“Sikarbaal,” Batnoam said sternly, and Rossi jerked up to look at him. There was light creeping through the gaps in the warehouse wall. Haley was huddled against a pillar, eyes huge and glazed and locked on Reid. Not possessed anymore. The demon had a new vessel.

“Dave,” Dave corrected him absently, finding her hand and threading his fingers through hers. “She… she always liked calling me Dave.”

Someone whimpered next to him, a wheezing whine of pain. The hand on his arm tugged more insistently, and Rossi looked at him. “Rossi—” Reid began, and Dave pulled his arm back gently and smiled.

“Dave,” he corrected again, slower this time in case the boy hadn’t heard him. “And, I need you to leave.”

Reid blinked. “I—” he said, but Dave cut him off once more.

“Get. Out.” He said it clearly but firmly. “This is your fault. I want you to leave. Now.”

Maybe Reid left. Maybe he didn’t. Everything turned a bit distant after that. The sun patterned her wings with the illusion of life, like she was going to leap up and laugh and beat them wildly just to whirl up the dust onto his nice clothes. _Come on, chicken-wings_ , she’d bark, her sharp eyes glinting. _Move it. Time to fly_.

“She loves flying,” he explained to Batnoam, who watched and said nothing.

The sun stopped patterning her wings. Shadows crept in. Dave blinked. A hand brushed his shoulder and he tried to look up, his body sluggish and hurting. His face raw, stiff, swollen.

“It’s time,” Batnoam said gently, and crouched beside them. His white wing, always so prim and proper, curling over Dave’s in some kind of comfort. Dave looked at the white wing on his brown one; white where it should have been black. “She has to go home now, Sikarbaal. I have to take her home.”

White instead of black.

“She’s actually dead,” Dave said. “Oh.”

A whisper of air and he was alone. Her body was gone. Not even blood marred the cement where she’d lain. Like she’d never been there at all. He looked at his hands and they were rust-brown and flaky still. But she _had_ existed. Her blood was proof of that.

A black feather danced on the wind before being whisked away and out of sight.

“Oh,” he said one final time, and began to cry.

 

* * *

 

He went home. The house was stagnant. Dave stared around blankly. What was he looking for?

Spencer.

He’d said…

With a shudder he remembered what he’d said. The words. He’d meant them. Did he? He thought he might have. And it wasn’t true. It _wasn’t._

Emily had made her choice. Herself for Spencer. He could see it now. The gun cocked and aimed as the demon used Haley’s voice to tell Aaron that Spencer was dangerous, unhinged.

Emily, teleporting. Falling. Failing.

She’d never once let Dave down. Not once. And she hadn’t then either. Even then, she hadn’t let him down.

He needed someone. Anyone. Stumbling, he was in the hallway staring at a door closed tight against him. His chest hitched, his breath caught, and he leaned against that solid wood and left a smeary mark where his cheek brushed it.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, his breath warming the wood under his mouth. “I… Spence. I’ve never… lost anyone….”

It hurt.

God, it hurt.

“I snapped,” he said, choked, gasped, and he could feel his wings catching on the rug. Crumpled, like the rest of him, under the weight of this alien emotion. How did humans _survive_ this feeling? He felt like something integral had been torn from him, ripped out on the dusty warehouse floor and thrown away like her one last feather. “I snapped at you and you didn’t deserve that and you don’t deserve someone like _me_ , you deserve _more,_ but… I need you. Spence, please. I need… help…”

He was dying. This had to be dying. Choking on a weight in his chest, drowning in his struggling lungs. He hoped it was death because there had to be an end.

And Spencer didn’t answer.

Which was more than he deserved.

He pushed open the door. The handle was slick under his hand. Maybe he was angry. Maybe he was broken. Maybe he was _nothing_. He didn’t really have a plan except to curl up close to the one person left in the world who he loved and just _grieve._

Grieve her smile and her voice and her humour and—

The door opened to an empty room. Untouched.

No. Not untouched.

His feather was on the bed. He didn’t even remember Spencer taking it back, but he must have. Dave walked over and looked down at it. At what kept it company. The brown barred feather. Another black one, unset. Emily had given Spencer one of hers. That stung, strangely, an acidic burn. His gun. His credentials.

A note.

He unfolded it with shaking hands.

_Dave,_

_I’m going to fix what I’ve done. All of my life, I’ve relied on you to solve my problems and that’s wrong. You’re so much more than just my guardian. You’re your own person with your own life and your own needs and I’ve always ignored that. You deserve more. Emily deserved more. I can’t bring her back, but I can free you._

_It’s not interested in Aaron. It took him to hurt me._

_It wants me._

_Thank you for everything, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better son. You were the greatest Dad I could have asked for._

_Please, look after Mom._

He hadn’t signed it. It ended there.

He’d just…

Gone.


	8. Fading

He wasn’t at the BAU. He wasn’t at the library. Or the park. Or any of his favourite haunts. He wasn’t at Aaron’s house. He wasn’t at Morgan’s. Or Garcia’s, or JJ’s, or sitting by the Potomac saying goodnight to the sky. Dave tried each and every one of these places, and then he went to the last place he felt stable. Real. Not this broken angel with the clipped wings struggling to pull his life back together.

The library of lives was dim. The walls greyer than white. Nothing floated, nothing was wispy, nothing was ethereally obtuse. It felt like the ghost of the coop he hated, and oddly, he missed it right then.

He found Alesia curled on her bed in the back room, her prim wings folded and her glasses off. Hair undone, tumbling around her shoulders. She was crying. “Alesia,” he said, feeling nothing, and she jolted upright. Stared at him like he was the ghost and the library wasn’t hollowing out with her mood. “I need help.”

“Oh my god, Sikarbaal,” she breathed, staggering to her feet and into his arms. He held her. He still felt nothing as she sobbed against him. “I can’t believe… Abirami… it _can’t_ be…”

“I need help,” he repeated, and his throat hurt. She pulled back, narrowing her brown eyes to study him. “A book. I need… a book.”

And that gaze softened. “Oh, Sik,” she said, and he twitched at the unusual nickname. “Honey… her book would have closed. It’s closed and gone to Archives… there’s no reading it now.”

No. No, that was wrong.

“Not…” He trailed off. What was _wrong_ with him? His brain was fuzzy, distracted. His body cold, colder than it had ever been before. His chest filled with… _shit_. Just making everything hard. Maybe he’d hurt himself… maybe his grace was running out. He shook the tingly out of his arms and tried again. “Not Emily’s. Abi’s, I mean. Spencer Reid’s. My… charge’s. I need it. I lost him. And I need to find him.” She swallowed. She was going to turn him down.

She _couldn’t_.

He grabbed her arm, shaking her roughly. “Alesia, _please_ , I am _begging_ ,” he said, his fingers probably painfully tight. “I can’t… he can’t _die_. I can’t…” Can’t what? Can’t do it? Can’t lose another?  Can’t take that hit to his pride?

“I can’t,” she said, and he almost crumpled right there. Too much. _Too much._ “No, Sik… I _can’t_. His book—Batnoam checked it out. We don’t have it here. I’m sorry.”

Dave blinked. Well that was…

A horrifying suspicion began to brew.

“Thank you,” he said numbly, and walked away. Ignoring her calling after him. He had to find Batnoam. But the angel wasn’t in his rooms. Nor in his office. Dave was beginning to feel like he was spending his life searching for people making themselves impossible to be found.

“If I was a stuck-up prig like Batty, where would I be…” he mumbled to himself, making his way through the grim corridors of the mourning coop. Ignoring the woeful looks passing angels kept giving him. Ignoring their whispers: _he was her best friend, thick as thieves, gosh he looks awful._

It didn’t make sense. Batty spent his goddamn _life_ either in his office or his rooms. Dave thought he _might_ be in the chapel, but he couldn’t bear to go there… not with what he knew would be laid out there waiting to be returning to her Grace. Nope. Not even a little bit…

He blinked, his steps slowing.

And he changed direction.

“Not a stuck-up prig,” he said out loud, startling two angels passing by. “If I was… _grieving_ … where would I go?” Somewhere good. Somewhere where the memories didn’t hurt. Not a chapel with a body laid out neatly, not an office where there’d been more fights than anything kind.

_Thwop._

A sheep looked up and _baa_ ’d at him as he appeared on its field, scampering away in a blur of rainbow-glowing wool. Dave stared, scanning the field. Counting the rainbow blobs scattered neatly about the grass.

“She preferred black,” Batnoam said from behind him. Dave turned, finding the other angel sitting on the grass, seemingly uncaring of the greenish stains on his usually immaculate robes. “I know that but… I rather like the colour. There isn’t enough _colour_ around here.”

“I need Spencer’s book,” Dave said, ignoring the off-putting humanity of this moment. They weren’t human. They were angels. Angels didn’t feel, they didn’t hurt, they didn’t get flustered right when their charges needed them, and, most of all, they didn’t—

“You need to grieve,” Batty said gently, patting the grass next to him. “Dave, what you’re feeling is _grief._ And it is a terrible, terrible thing. Sometimes I feel that we angels are less for feeling it so rarely, despite its demanding nature.”

“I’m not grieving,” Dave snapped. “I’m _busy_. I need to find Spencer, before he—”

“He is already with the demon,” Batnoam said, and a shudder worked its way through Dave from his toes right up to the tips of his wings. “His book aches.” On his lap, the silver-purple book of so many years ago sat. No longer slim and neat, but bulging at the sides with paper sprawling forth as it tried to contain everything in the mind of the life it was writing. As Dave looked at it, a creeping ashy shadow began to chew through the pages, leaving nothing but a slimy paste behind where it touched. “Your job is over, Dave. He made his choice.”

“No,” Dave replied, because he refused to stand here surrounding by fucking _sheep_ and watch the book destroy itself from the inside out. “I don’t give up. You know that. It’s why you gave me him—the singularly most infuriating charge I have or ever will have again. Because I’m the _only_ angel in your wing who could deal with him. And I’m not done dealing yet.”

“You’re in shock,” Batnoam continued, studying him intently. “That’s the cold feeling. The fuzziness in your brain, your slowed reactions. It’s shock, and it’s crippling. Your chest hurts. Your breathing feels tight. You feel like you want to scream, to fight, to curl up and feel _nothing_. That’s grief, Dave. And you can’t fight it by throwing yourself at a brick wall.”

“Don’t quit on me,” Dave told him coldly. “I’m going back—since when I have given two _fucks_ about your rules? Why the fuck do you think I’m gonna stop now? When it matters most?”

Batnoam breathed in gently. A sheep _baa_ ’d. Grass rustled.

The book whimpered in pain. The cover began to curl, revealing red-stained pages.

“I’ve read it,” Batnoam said finally, holding the book up. “I’ve read this book, Dave. Cover to cover. I know the endings, all of them. I always have. It’s my job to know.” Dave waited. There was no hurrying Batnoam when he looked _this_ intent on something. “You aren’t the only angel who could ‘deal’ with Spencer Reid.” Batnoam cocked his head back, watching the sun that never set on this place instead of watching Dave. “You are, however, the only one who could keep him alive. Every other angel, every other possibility… I’ve read them all; they all lost him. Even Abirami. In every one, the demon gets them, gets him… every one, except those with _you_.”

“Me?” Dave repeated dumbly. “What’s different about me?”

“You love him,” Batnoam said simply. “You love him so much you burn with it. That’s the difference. It’s not such a small difference—especially not for him. In one ending—just one—Spencer Reid lives. And he goes on to be a great man.”

“Then I have to go back,” Dave said, reaching for the book. “Jesus, Batty, you can’t tell me _that_ and then refuse to let me go!”

Batnoam shifted back, just slightly. Enough for the book on his lap to change position. Another book underneath, unlike any book Dave had seen before. White, the thing was. Painfully white. He studied it and Batty offered no clues, just waited for Dave to make the leap.

Oh.

“If I go back, he lives?” he said finally.

Batty nodded, his soft eyes gentler than Dave had ever seen them.

Dave jabbed his thumb at the other book. The pasty white one. “And if I go back…” He sucked in a breath. “…does that one close?”

Another nod, slower this time.

Okay.

Well. That wasn’t much of a choice at all.

Dave took Spencer’s book from Batnoam’s lap. Stood. Walked away. Felt the breeze on his face and his wings and didn’t pause. “Goodbye, Batnoam,” he called, and teleported. Maybe Batnoam replied. Maybe he didn’t. Dave found himself oddly sad that he’d never know for sure. But he’d promised to always protect his charge.

That hadn’t changed.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t go straight to Spencer. If this ended how he expected it was going to end, someone needed to be there to pick up the pieces. Spencer had never worked well alone, and he was going to be alone for the first time since he was six years old. He snapped into being in the room where his boy had finally found his purpose, and the table was surrounded by the people who’d made it possible. A family. Spencer’s family. He watched them for a heartbeat as they argued about where Aaron was, where Spencer was, as they panicked in the controlled, professional way that only people trained never to panic could.

And then he revealed himself.

Morgan saw him first. Frowned and opened his mouth to ask who he was, but JJ had seen him second and her eyes were widening as she stared at his wings. He flexed them, ruffling them tight, and saw everyone else’s eyes turn to him.

Gideon’s, blankly shocked. Elle’s, with her mouth slipping open. Garcia just… shocked.

“My name is Sikarbaal,” Dave said quietly in a voice that rumbled. “I am God’s Grace, and my sole purpose is to keep Spencer Reid alive. I need your help.”

“Holy fuck me dead,” Morgan said. No one else said a word.

“If I take that—” Dave jabbed his thumb at someone’s cell sitting on the round table, “—and call you from it once I reach him, you can track it, yes?”

“Yes,” whispered Garcia.

“Good, yes,” Dave said, nodding, and stepped forward jerkily to pick up the phone. JJ, the closest to it, pulled away. “Thank you. Allow three minutes for me to reach his destination. He and Aaron will almost certainly require medical care, and I cannot guarantee that there will be an easy explanation for what you find when you arrive there. If you truly care for them, you must be prepared to hide their actions. I can promise you, nothing that they have done was done with their consent.”

“Haley is—” Gideon began, straightening with his eyes blazing.

“Thank you,” Dave said again, and teleported one final time. The phone in his hand and their eyes still locked on him even as he vanished. He was at the end of a park, an expanse of damp green lawn stretching out around him. Sprinklers clicked on, misting the air with their familiar whirr as dawn began to break. Dave swallowed, touched his fingers to the dying book, and tucked the cell into a crook of a nearby tree after dialling Garcia. He began to walk before the call connected, towards a thrumming presence ahead.

End game.

 

* * *

 

A duck pond.

It was almost funny. Almost. Except Dave was fucking sure it had been picked as a deliberate jibe at him. Two swans scooted past, leaving a line of ripples. Ducks squabbled near the edge of the pond. A concrete rim stretched around this side, dropping smoothly into the brackish water, trash rolling against it and caught in the reeds. Someone was laying on that rim. Sprawled forward like they’d been thrown down without a care, right arm and head rocked forward over the edge. Dave glanced once at that body, distracted, and then glanced again and surged forward to drag Aaron back from toppling over. He was out cold, his body stiff and unyielding under Dave’s hands as he rolled him onto his back and fumbled for a pulse, a breath, _anything._ Both of which he found.

He was _alive_.

“Thank fuck,” Dave managed, shaking him gently. “Aaron. _Aaron_.”

_Plop._

He twitched, jerking around to where the concrete rim sloped down. Spencer was hunched there, one foot trailing in the water. Lobbing rocks into the still surface of the pond, his expression pensive.

Dave shivered, and showed himself.

“Spencer,” he said softly, wondering what would look back at him. Hazel eyes did, wonderfully familiar. Spencer smiled like himself, a bright beam that would have been relaxing if Aaron wasn’t cold under Dave’s palm.

“Hello, Sikarbaal,” said Spencer, and Dave’s guts plummeted to his shoes. Spencer didn’t call him that. Spencer didn’t even _know_ that name. “He didn’t think you were going to show.”

He?

Dave almost threw up.

“Get _out_ of him,” he snarled, striding forward, but Spencer’s hand flickered down to his side and up, the knife wickedly sharp and pressed to his thigh. Dave froze.

“Nope,” said Spencer, and laughed, the smile turning wide and gross. “Oh gosh, this _brain_. It’s like _lightning._ I thought that boy there—” The knife danced in the air as it gestured to Aaron and back to Spencer’s leg, “—I thought _that_ boy was a clever thing, but he’s _nothing_ compared to your Spencer. I knew he was special… worth the wait.” A pink tongue flickered out over Spencer’s lips as he stood in a smooth movement, more coordinated in his stolen body than Spencer had ever been. Despite that grace, Dave swallowed hard at watching the man walk without fear along the rim of the pond, sidling past Dave to move towards Aaron.

“Don’t touch him,” Dave warned him, arching his wings angrily and casting them into a furious shadow in the weak light. Ignoring him, Spencer crouched by Aaron’s side and tugged him up into his lap, fingers curling around the shape of the other man’s skull. The knife glinted in his other hand as he made himself comfortable, his expression bland but hands… soft. Soothing.

There was something so _familiar_ about that touch, it broke Dave’s heart. That was Spencer’s touch. Not the demon.

Some part of him was still in there.

“You haven’t got any power here,” Spencer said quietly. “No power over me, no power within yourself. You’re just as weak as that black-winged bitch back at the warehouse, the one who was so _desperate_ to protect sweet little Spencer that she took a bullet for him.”

Dave twitched with fury. How _dare_ this snivelling little _rat_ call her that!

“He hates himself for that,” the demon continued—the demon, because Spencer would never talk like this. As he spoke, the knife dipped. Skimmed Aaron’s jaw, his throat, snicking buttons from his shirt as it worked down his chest. “Your Spence-y. _Despises_ himself for having to be protected. He’s almost glad that I destroyed him… almost glad that he doesn’t have to feel like that anymore.”

Words raspy and throat tight, Dave managed a rough, “You haven’t destroyed shit. You’re just a piss-ass little demon who thinks he’s got it all figured out.”

Spencer blinked up at him, looking for all the world like Dave had just caught him stealing cookies again or going through his father’s study. He continued looking like that, sweetly innocent, even as the knife ducked and bit home, slipping slowly through Aaron’s skin and leaving a pooling trail of red behind it. Aaron twitched, moaned, shuddered.

“Shh, shh,” the demon said in Spencer’s voice, ducking to kiss the man. Knife biting deeper as he did so. “I’m here. I’ve got you. It’s okay, love. We’re dealing with it, this feathery little competition…” He looked up at Dave again, through his lashes, and smiled cattily. “He loved you, you know. He has this secret little thought, all tucked up tight and secret like, that you’re his _daddy_. How sad is that? Lonely little Spencer, so desperate for a father that he clings to a wreck of a thing like _you_.”

Aaron’s eyes snapped open. He blinked, staring at Spencer. Then he looked to the knife.

“A wreck, huh?” Dave replied, holding his anger in check. “Is that why you’ve been dancing around me so many years? Those other angels… you didn’t fear them like you fear me. I can smell it. You _stink_ of fear, Aval. I’m the monster under your bed, and you couldn’t face me until you thought you had a shield…”

“Well, it’s a pretty effective shield.” Spencer snorted, stabbing the knife home. It caught skin, shoved deep, but Aaron grunted and rolled out of the way, taking the knife with him and dragging himself out of reach. He didn’t say anything, just folded himself over the wound and stared at Spencer like he was trying to work out what had happened, fingers red around the handle. Spencer barely seemed to notice, picking lint from his trousers. “You can’t hurt me in this skin, Sikarbaal. And with this brain, Spencer’s knowledge… I can kill so many more. He can sense angels too, you know. The headache is a bit of a bitch—it feels very much like my head is cooking itself into soup, but it’s mostly _his_ pain. I’ll just heap it onto him until he boils away and then I’ll use what’s left to hunt you _all_ down. And your indispensables as well. I wonder how haywire the course of human history will be if I destroy every one of them?”

Aaron’s head turned slowly. Dave watched him in his peripherals, saw his gaze land on a gun in the grass. Spencer’s revolver.

“Ooh, yes. Aaron, give me that gun.” Spencer whirled, holding his sticky hand out and wiggling the fingers. “Quick—come on. Gimme. Let’s play a game.” Aaron didn’t move, so Spencer snarled in anger and strode to it, scooping it up and offering it to Dave, ignoring the human. “Here, Sikky. Take it. _Take it!”_ He screamed the last, his voice echoing in the park. A few joggers glanced at them, saw the gun. Bolted.

“Let him go,” Aaron said suddenly, his voice cracking. “Whatever you are, stop this. Don’t… don’t hurt him like you did me…”

“Don’t make him shoot at someone he loves, you mean?” Spencer’s mouth twisted into a false smile. “Oh, but you were so easy to _lead_. A man of strong desires. Desire to love, to protect. So easily _influenced._ I can’t make love, but I can damn well feed off of it. And when I whispered, _he’s here to hurt her,_ well… you listened, didn’t you? That’s not on me. You hurt yourself, Hotchy. And killed your angel to boot. Poor, poor Abirami. Now, Dave. Take the gun.”

Dave didn’t. Spencer made a frustrated noise, hurling the weapon at him. Aaron and Dave both flinched as it thudded into his chest and hit the ground, half-expecting it to misfire. Aaron crawled forward and picked it up, slowly. Dave stepped back

“Come on, agent,” Spencer said, and spread his arms. A wider target. “Do it. I’ll kill _so many_ unless you kill me first. Demons, angels, _everyone._ I’ll kill them all and once I start… oh, love, you’ll never stop me.” He paused, cocking his head to the side and staring Aaron down relentlessly. “Oh… maybe I’ll start with you. Just to shut his mewling up for good. Do you think that will break him? You… JJ’s pregnant. I bet that would _kill_ him to know he hurt her… oh, so many possibilities. His crazy mother, so _defenceless._ ” Hazel eyes switched back to Dave. “And I guess you’ll be there to watch, hmm? Oh, how lovely for you. We can spend eternity together, friend. Like a true father and son. You should be thankful. I’ve given you _forever_ with him.”

Aaron closed his eyes. Spencer glanced away. Towards the playground.

Children laughed nearby.

“Perhaps I’ll start with them,” he finished, and turned away.

Dave leaned down and took the gun from Aaron’s slack hand. Aaron’s expression paled as the weapon was tugged from his fingers by an invisible force.

“You want an eternity?” Dave said softly, and Spencer turned back to look at him. Snorted when he saw the gun in Dave’s hands. “Then take me.”

Silence.

“That can’t be done,” the demon said, but his tone betrayed his interest.

“Can’t it?” Dave asked, shrugging. “Half the shit I did for that kid ‘can’t’ be done. Showing myself, teleporting humans… look in his memories. You can see it all, everything they say ‘can’t’ be done. You possessing a guarded human? Most people think that ‘can’t’ be done. Influencing Aaron to the level you did? I bet Abi didn’t realize that could be done, or else she’d have acted sooner. We barely know what can be done. But if it can… imagine the _power_. If it doesn’t work, you can just jump back to him… or to Aaron. He’s just as powerful, really. Not as smart, but so much political sway, if you play his cards right.”

“Not him,” the demon said absently, chewing at his lip as he mulled that over. “He’s broken. I don’t like them broken.”

Dave breathed out. He’d been banking on that.

The gun warmed in his hand.

“I’m old,” Dave said, and felt it. “I’m strong. I’ve seen empires rise and fall and here I am. Offering myself to you to save a single human. Doesn’t that _infuriate_ you? This potential I’m wasting?”

“Weak,” the demon agreed, and stepped forward once. Once more. And again, until they were almost chest to chest and he could reach out Spencer’s hand to press against Dave’s chest. Dave took that hand, seeing the demon’s expression curl with distaste. But the fingers around his gripped tight, clinging. Still something to save.

“Take me,” he said again. “I offer myself to you.”

And the demon surged from Spencer, keeping tentative hooks in his mind and soul as he shoved roughly into Dave’s. Just in case.

It hurt.

It hurt more then there were words to describe. As though someone had grabbed his wings and ripped them to the side, tearing him right down the middle. A clawed hand pressing cruelly into the deepest parts of his soul and cleaving in with a savage disregard for the damage it was doing. But it couldn’t bite home. Like this, wound together, his eyes closed and mouth screaming, perhaps, or maybe he was only screaming in his head, Dave could see the way the demon had slunk into every part of Spencer’s core. Adhering like a creeping vine.

Everything in Dave repelled him. Water from oil, they slipped off one another and the demon shrieked with frustration and tried to withdraw back to the body that welcomed it.

Dave grabbed it. Clung on grimly, and opened his eyes.

Spencer looked back, panting. Aaron was shouting nearby, the park around them blurred.

“Sorry,” gasped Dave, feeling his grip on the demon slip. “But you’re wrong, kid.” Spencer’s face twisted in confusion as he tried to drop to his knees, tried to escape the pain they were causing him. Maybe he whimpered something—it almost sounded like _Rossi_ —but Dave wasn’t done. “You _were_ the best son I could ask for. Don’t put yourself down all the time.”

And he shot him.

Spencer blinked. The demon let go of him with a howl as it registered the easily fatal shot, letting him stumble back. Dave watched the red in the centre of Spencer’s chest bloom as he lowered himself gently to the grass with a startled _oh_.

“Sorry,” Dave said again, still holding the demon tight within his very self, burning at the touch. Aaron leapt forward with a cry, Dave dropped the gun, sirens wailed nearby. Spencer looked at him, one last time, Aaron’s hands scrabbling at his chest to try to hold his life inside. Dave smiled, the world blurring a little. He just had to hope the team were close enough that…

Well. He just had to hope.

And then everything vanished as something grabbed him and tore him down, away from the Earth and everything in it. He fell, and the demon fell with him.

The One Rule that was utterly Unbreakable.

_No angel shall harm their charge._

_Limbo_ , thought Rossi, and then he thought nothing at all.


	9. Epilogue

He jerked awake with a grunt and a dizzying feel that the world was canting oddly underneath him. It took a moment to regain his bearings. Wood. Wood under his hand, his face on his hand, drool on that… ew.

“Alright there, Rossi?” someone asked with a chuckle, and he sat upright and stared blankly at the man sitting across from him. “You looked so cosy, I didn’t wanna wake you.”

Uh. Rossi blinked again. Rossi. Yes. That was him.

“Yeah, Morgan,” he tried, rubbing his aching eyes. His everything hurt. Too old to be sleeping on tables, case or no case. Wait; case?

“I bring coffee,” JJ said cheerfully, walking in with a cardboard box containing six paper cups and smiling down on him. “You sure look like you could use it.” He stared at the coffee. Counted. Counted again. “Dave?” She leaned in close, frowning. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I have to…” He trailed off, staggering upright. Off-balance. Why was he off-balance? He slid his hand over his sore shoulder, tracing the shoulder-blade with his fingers and feeling weirdly light. Bare shoulder-blade, under the shirt. Of course it was. What was he _expecting_? “Bathroom.”

He almost bolted from the room, making his way unerringly up familiar halls until he rounded a corner and almost slammed into the person making their way around it. “Woah, tiger,” Emily said, stepping back and lifting her gaze from her phone. “Where’s the fire?”

“Abi,” he breathed, and then frowned. Why did he say that?

“Emily,” she corrected, one dark eyebrow snapping up. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer, just launched himself at her. Arms around her slender shoulders, he hugged her close and pressed his face against her shoulder, breathing in a shudder that was almost a sob. Something hitched in his chest, some popping relief of a tension he hadn’t been consciously aware of carrying.

“Yes, just…” he managed, and grit his teeth against every surging emotion. What the _fuck_ was wrong with him today? “You look… I’m just so _damn_ happy to see you.”

“Obviously,” she mumbled into his chest. “I can’t breathe. Dave, help. Squashing, you’re squashing…”

“Breathing is overrated,” he told her with a chuckle, doing just that. An easing out of breath that seemed to take everything he was feeling with it, leaving him just… a little confused as to why he was hugging his co-worker so enthusiastically.

“You’re also poking me,” she grumbled, wiggling away. He blinked, looking down. “Your pocket, Dave, you degenerate. There’s something sharp in your pocket.”

Chuckling, he slid his hand into his pocket, mind already elsewhere. There was the case to worry about, Strauss was going to be on his ass about the report he was supposed to be… his fingers closed around something odd, soft and sharp all at once. He frowned, pulling it loose.

“A feather?” Emily asked distantly. “Why—”

A shriek up the hall caught his attention, Garcia hurtling past. “They’re back!” she hollered, and Rossi mirrored Emily’s grin and followed her out into the bullpen as the glass doors swung open. “Oh, look at them! See—no damn serial killers can keep my boys down!”

“Don’t hug him, he’s delicate,” Hotch scolded as Garcia threatened to do just that, dancing around the gingerly walking Reid. Reid grinned, dodged back, and the grin became a wide, beaming smile when he saw Emily and Rossi waiting.

“I’ll hug you then!” Garcia demanded, and grabbed Hotch instead. To his credit, the man allowed it. Even hugged back a little. Softie.

_Click click thump_ went Spencer’s crutches on the carpet as he made his slow way over. “You look like shit,” Rossi told him. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you which side of the gun goes bang?”

“Hotch tried,” Reid said cheerfully. “The lesson didn’t stick. Why is my intake empty?”

“We did your paperwork for you while you were off recuperating,” Emily replied. “Knew you’d hate it. You’re welcome.” Reid, to his credit, managed to hide how disappointed he actually was that they hadn’t gifted his return with bucket-loads of paperwork. Emily scuffed his hair and strode off to rescue Hotch from Garcia, laughing at them both.

“Hey, Rossi,” Reid said quietly, glancing over at Aaron and smiling softly. Rossi cocked an eyebrow. Well, _there_ was a something. That wasn’t just a platonic ‘nice to see you alive’ smile. That was a ‘nice to see you alive and possibly in my bed and cooking family dinners’ with me smile, and Hotch’s divorce papers were barely dry. _Naughty little shit._ He made a mental note to tease the kid later for clearly having no morals instilled in him during his upbringing. “Thanks.”

“For what?” Rossi asked, considering hugging him. Hey, guy had almost died. That deserved a hug, right? Before he could act on it, Hotch managed to remove himself from Garcia’s grip, and returned Spencer’s smile. With a real one; _I’ll be damned_ , Rossi thought gleefully. That was a silly, _giddy_ kind of smile. _You’re **both** little shits! _  “Last I checked, I didn’t do anything. Hotch saved your ass.”

“I don’t know,” Reid admitted, turning away. The moment was over. “Just felt like I should thank you. Do you have any paperwork?”

“Sure, kid. All the paperwork you can handle. What kind of a man would I be if I didn’t gift your return with a whole ream of budgets for you to dig through?” He grinned, his fingers tracing the white tines of the feather. Someone coughed by Reid’s side, and Rossi looked up to the man leaning against the wall, watching them with a smile playing on his lips.

“Consider this what it is, Dave,” Batnoam said with a sedate incline of his chin. “A gift.”

“Huh,” said David Rossi, staring at the empty wall until he wasn’t sure what he was looking for anymore. His fingers hummed, his heart skipping for a moment as though the feather was reminding him what it felt like to fly.

Then it was gone, and his hand held nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> **Edited August, 2017.**


End file.
